Everyone who's been on a bus knows they're smelly, relatively inconvenient and often harbor individuals with discordant relationships to hygiene. Why should we carry buses forward into the glorious future? Because Toyota, the future designers of the future, wants us to. The company's futurists have designed the Z-Capsule, a system of buses that can operate unmanned on a dedicated guideway, or manually on an ordinary street. The bus "units" operate in a "platoon" of three, which can separate and regroup as needed. Speed is regulated by inter-vehicle communication, ground signals, and, hopefully less often, inanimate objects. Still, fail-safe measures would protect passengers from harm, even those who've neglected to shower.
Toyota Eco Buses [Treehugger]
Related:
More futuristic stuff [internal]