alt Hacker NewsNo it's quite dissimilar. Streetcars in Toronto travel in mixed traffic in the middle lanes and deposit passengers into the right lane of traffic, which is expected to stop behind the open doors. What happens if the right lane is occupied by stopped traffic? You have to sit and wait while the passengers do their thing around the hopefully-attentive driver of the stopped vehicle.
Being in mixed traffic, streetcars are easily blocked by disabled vehicles or straight-up idiots. The time between launch and one of these things sperging out and blocking streetcars will be measured in minutes.
They can already handle the streetcars in SF which sometimes let people out in weird places, although I don't know if it's the same as Toronto. It seems like it would be easy to update them to stop for the open doors if that's what they're supposed to do. They're pretty good at detecting when people might cross in front of them even if there's nobody in their way yet.
FWIW I've never been to Toronto but legally I could go there and drive without knowing about this particular rule. If it's something unique to the area and has the potential for danger I'd be more worried about people than robots.