"This report explores autonomous vehicle benefits and costs, and implications for various planning issues. It investigates how quickly self driving vehicles are likely to be developed and deployed based on experience with previous vehicle technologies, their benefits and costs, and how they are likely to affect travel demands and planning decisions such as optimal road, parking and public transit supply."

Key findings

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Predictions that autonomous vehicles could replace private ones may be optimistic as private cars are more convenient and offer more reliability and a symbol of status.

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"With current policies, autonomous vehicles are likely to significantly increase total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and pollution emissions, probably by 10-30%, and even more on some major travel corridors. "

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"AVs ultimate impact depends on how they interacts with other trends, such as shifts from personal to shared vehicles. It is probably not a “game changer” during most of our professional lives, and is only a “paradigm shift” to the degree that this technology supports shifts to more efficient and multimodal transport planning."

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