RACQ head of public policy Rebecca Michael said there had been a shift towards "Spotifying" vehicles overseas, where people could hire cars on demand, much like streaming music.

"It's a shift from ownership to access," she said, when asked about the future of transport in Queensland during a parliamentary inquiry into transport technology.

"When you look at the running costs of vehicles, a lot of the time particularly in those more densely populated systems overseas in Europe that have good-quality public transport, it doesn't make financial sense to actually own a vehicle.

"However, you might want to access one for a weekend trip."

Dr Michael said people could already sign up to vehicle subscription services, which would allow someone to hire a small car to get around the city during the week and a "Mustang to cruise down the coast on the weekend".

Transurban Queensland strategic initiatives general manager Stephen McDonald said if there was a "Spotification" of vehicles, the whole concept of how people paid for and interacted with transport would change.

"Some of the technology is here and it's advancing quite fast but to get to that full completely integrated mobility as a service offering is, in our view, significantly far away, as is the full automation of all of the vehicles where you can drive anywhere, any time," he said.

Dr Michael said autonomous vehicles could also bust congestion.

"If we see uptake of autonomous vehicles in the public transport sector, which may actually improve the efficiency of that sector, then we might see a transfer from people driving their own vehicles, into using more PT [public transport]," she said.

"However, autonomous vehicles have the potential to open up the transport network to a number of people who might not be able to drive.

"So people with a disability, people with a medical condition.

"Unless we actually undertake work to ensure that we have good-quality public transport that is contestable with people wanting to drive, we could have a situation where autonomous vehicles are actually exacerbating congestion."

Dr Michael said only one-third of RACQ members trusted autonomous technology.

Member for Bundamba Jo-Ann Miller said the people in her electorate were the "working poor" and would not be able to afford driverless cars.

"Will they be left out in terms of service from this new technology coming in?" she asked.

Dr Michael said it would probably be about 25 years before there was "mass deployment" of autonomous vehicles.

"In terms of the benefits that people living in poorer socio-economic areas might accrue, that will be largely where autonomous vehicles may be deployed earlier – the freight and the public transport sector," she said.

"We'll have more PT running at a cheaper cost."

Meanwhile, Transurban Queensland general manager Christopher Poynter said the company trialled partially automated vehicles from about eight manufacturers on its road network last year.

"We tested the existing technology on those vehicles that you can buy in the showroom today," he said.