This article says virtually nothing, giving examples of how automated systems have human backups (no shit) and mostly focusing on two fiction novels where those backup solutions are hidden to the public. It doesn't really make any kind of a statement about how automated transportation solutions are inherently bad, it just pretends that having a human operator backing up the system somehow changes or reduces the value of it, and insinuates that we shouldn't make any kind of attempt at technological innovation because fiction novelists were able to show how it could look dystopian if you construct the narrative in such a way as to make that happen. As if black mirror hasn't already illustrated that it's possible to do that with virtually any technology.
The conceptually simple possibility that better transit options could be provided by government, as a collective undertaking for the public good—and that this might be preferable to developing a radically new technology—is treated as an obvious non-starter.
Ah, here we go. The whole article could have just been this one sentence, as it's the obvious focus of the message.