I'm very skeptical. Just because one can imagine something on the cover of a sci-fi novel doesn't mean it's also practical--where's the math?

I'm thinking of how we've already been through this song and dance with hyperloop, which got way too much attention for something that was always doomed because of safe following-distances versus total throughput.

Taxis--even shrunken automated ones--won't solve rush-hour traffic problems, because you still have the same number of people trying to get to most of the same places at the same time. The author keeps comparing them against trains, but taxi-pods can't even begin to solve the same problem.