Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their own routes

The moia service in Hamburg Germany offers virtual stops which is the next step I would argue. The bus follows a different route and stops every time based on the need of current passengers

https://www.hvv-switch.de/en/faq/what-are-virtual-stops/

I was going to say this! Moia is pretty awesome

What does that mean? The links doesn't help explain it much?

In the UK/London there are some bus routes where you just stick your arm out and the bus will stop to get you where you stand ("hail and ride") and equally you can just ring a bell when onboard and the driver stops as soon as there is somewhere convenient to let you off. The route is fixed though.

Is it that sort of thing?

What routes are those? I thought you can only be picked up/dropped off at designated stops

This is just a shared taxi, no? They have existed for a long time at small scales. For example airports and hospitals often have such services.

The route through my village is hail and ride although most of the bus drivers seem to disagree.

So there are virtual stops all over the city. You book a ride let's say city center to your home. The service integrates this route into existing rides or create a new ride. It might stop 5 times on the way to your home and pick up people and drop them. And you as a passenger won't know the route in advance. And it will not be the fastest to your place in most cases.

I guess this is what you call "ride sharing". It is like your parents picking you up from football and realizing the kid from the other part of the town also needs a ride so they make a huge detour

It's a crossover between busses and taxis; they operate on demand like taxis, but only get you roughly the most direct way (they can drive detours to pick up other passengers on the way) in a roughly predetermined amount of time (a 20 minute drive usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes due to the detours) from roughly where you are to roughly where you want to go (they are only allowed to stop on a virtual grid of bus stops spaced around 250 meters apart).

Many routes have "hail and ride sections" without designated stops. You can't get off, but can hail and get on at any point. Here's a list for London [1].

[1] https://bus-routes-in-london.fandom.com/wiki/Hail_and_Ride_b...