Ahead of a November 15 SFMTA Board of Directors meeting to discuss the predicted effects of reducing the number of tech-shuttles stops across the city and changing the existing model to that of a hub system, officials have released the results of the agency's Commuter Shuttle Hub Study. The study considered four potential hub scenarios and found that while all of them would reduce both real and perceived conflicts with Muni, they would likely also lead to an increase of cars on the road and a heightened risk of automobile collisions.

Depending on the hub model adopted, the agency predicts anywhere between 1,780 to 3,300 more cars on the road daily and a 24 percent to 54 percent drop in shuttle ridership.

It was just last November that officials approved a network of 125 tech-shuttle stops across the city — making the 18-month pilot program permanent and formalizing the set of rules meant to govern the private shuttles that roam San Francisco streets. The program immediately faced legal challenges, and officials began to discuss the possibility of consolidating all the stops into hubs — ranging in number from 1 to 17.

That's right, the number of tech-shuttle stop across the city could decrease from 125 to just 17 — and that 17 number is on the high end.

Interestingly, the study also predicts that should a hub model be adopted, some shuttle companies might just ignore it. "Data collected as part of the Commuter Shuttle Pilot Program found that providing more legal stop locations led to a decrease in shuttle activity at unauthorized stop locations," reads the report. "Conversely, reducing the number of legal stop locations would likely result in an increase in unauthorized shuttle stop activity. One feature that makes shuttles an attractive option is their convenience, and as they become less convenient, non-participation and/or unauthorized stops will increase."

In other words, city officials are predicting a hub model would at least partially be ignored. If that scenario did indeed come to pass, it would likely be welcomed by the numerous employees of Apple, Facebook, and Google who voiced extreme displeasure at the thought of losing their stops last summer in a semi-anonymous survey.

"The hub system is an absolutely terrible idea," read one such response determined to be from Google HQ. "It completely defeats the purpose of the shuttle program and is clearly designed to try and get rid of it all together by making it less appealing. If a hub is not within walking distance for me, you know what I'll do? Drive."

The report itself does not recommend taking the hub approach or leaving things as they are, rather it attempts to provide likely results of the four suggested hub models. As detailed in a slide presentation summarizing the study's findings, the four options are presented as follows: a single node downtown, a BART-oriented network, a freeway-based system, and a consolidated network of stops (see below).

Whatever the Board of Supervisors and the SFMTA end up deciding to do with the tech-shuttle system, this new report has certainly given them a lot to chew on.

Related: Here's What Facebook, Google, And Apple Employees Really Think About Tech-Shuttle 'Hubs'