What does the self-driving car change in that case? Wouldn't that be just the same as ordinary carpooling that we can do today?
For carpooling with my own car, that's really too much work to try and hunt down someone, figure out how cost sharing is going to work, ensure that our schedules are in sync often enough for it to work out, and so on.
With an automated system, it can just adapt to changing demands. Maybe some days schedules are too far out of sync, so it just sends dedicated cars. Maybe some days there's someone better to pool with.
You can already do this with systems like UberPool, but with self driving cars, you don't have to pay a dedicated driver, so it becomes even cheaper and more convenient.
* ability to add more vehicles on demand
* automation