Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are at a critical juncture in their development. They could bring immense benefits, including reducing the cost of operation, improving traffic safety and traffic management, and providing mobility and independence to people who are unable to drive or use public transport due to age, disability or other factors. Yet there is considerable uncertainty about their impact. For example, the simplest path forward – replacing privately owned human-driven vehicles with privately owned AVs – will exacerbate existing transportation problems, such as increased traffic congestion, reduced urban livability and heightened mobility inequity. How AVs will enhance or undermine urban mobility depends on four factors:
- Whether we continue the private car ownership model or adopt a shared use model.
- Whether AV deployment can be effectively coordinated with land use planning to avoid further urban sprawl, for example.
- Whether AVs will operate under a rational, equitable pricing structure such as a surcharge on ghost vehicles.
- Whether AVs will be integrated and coordinated with public transport (PT) systems. This blog focuses dives deeper into this aspect and highlights the benefits of a synergistic AV-PT deployment model.
We advocate for integrating AVs with public transport to create a synergistic AV-PT deployment model. Public transport should remain the backbone of urban mobility systems as AVs and PT can play complementary roles: AVs offer direct, flexible and responsive service and PT provides high-capacity, space-efficient and scalable solutions.
