Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use

113 Pages·2014·1.1 MB·English

Road vehicle automation technologies:
anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use

Antonio Loro
22 January 2014
Supervised Research Project
Submitted to Dr. Ray Tomalty and Dr. Madhav Badami
School of Urban Planning, McGill University
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my academic supervisors Dr. Ray Tomalty and Dr. Madhav Badami
for their invaluable advice and feedback during this research project. Peter Fairley’s
insightful critiques as external reader were also very helpful. In addition, I benefitted
greatly from the generous support of Graeme Brown, Mike Friesen, Jacob Fox, and
many others at TransLink, and Nancy Ortenburg, Antoine Belaieff, Nick Lovett, and
others at Metrolinx. The contributions of the focus group participants and the
interviewees also played an important role in this research. I would also like to thank
many others for their help along the way: faculty and staff at McGill, many excellent
friends and colleagues in the urban planning program and beyond, and my family.
Finally, I hereby nominate Zoë Chan and Stuart Lee for knighthood for the level of
support they respectively provided.
Abstract
Many observers anticipate widespread adoption of increasingly advanced road vehicle
automation technologies in the coming decades. The present research project finds that
these technologies will have significant impacts on urban travel and land use. This report
investigates when various vehicle automation technologies are likely to emerge onto the
market, how rapidly they could be adopted, how they could affect the ease of travel, how
they could affect the efficiency with which roads and parking infrastructure are used, and
how they are likely to affect urban travel and land use patterns. While vehicles capable
of operating without human intervention could still be a few decades away, less
advanced technologies will be available within a few years and will begin to produce
impacts on cities. This research project finds that automation in private light-duty
vehicles, taxis, and car-share vehicles could result in benefits such as increased
capacities on some roads and easier motor vehicle travel. However, there could also be
negative impacts, such as increased congestion on city streets, increased vehicle travel,
and an increased tendency toward dispersed development. In addition, road capacity
improvements from automated private vehicles may be slow to emerge, since they are
dependent on high levels of adoption and high levels of automation. In contrast, if public
transit buses are automated, transit service could be improved, thus mitigating the
increases in vehicle travel and dispersed development.
Résumé
De nombreux observateurs anticipent l’adoption généralisée des technologies
d’automatisation plus avancées dans le domaine du transport dans les décennies à
venir. Selon cette recherche, ces technologies pourraient avoir un impact important sur
le transport urbain et sur l’utilisation des terres. Ce rapport aborde quand ces
technologies pourraient émerger sur le marché, la rapidité potentielle de leur adoption,
leur impact sur la facilité à voyager, leur efficacité en termes de l’utilisation des routes
publiques et des infrastructures de stationnement, et leur impact potentiel sur le
transport urbain et sur les types d’utilisation des terres. Tandis que les voitures qui
fonctionnent sans intervention humaine pourraient émerger seulement en quelques
décennies, des technologies moins avancées seront déjà disponibles en peu d’années
et commenceront bientôt avoir des impacts sur les villes. Ce projet de recherche
constate que l’automatisation de voitures particulières et utilitaires légères, de taxis et de
voitures en libre service auraient des résultats bénéfiques tels que la capacité
augmentée des routes publiques et la facilitation du transport en voiture. Par contre, il
y’aura également des effets négatifs : l’augmentation de la congestion, l’augmentation
du transport en voiture et une tendance accrue de l’aménagement dispersé. Par ailleurs,
les améliorations sur la capacité des routes grâce aux voitures automatisées
particulières pourraient tarder puisqu’elles dépendent sur un haut niveau d’adoption et
d’automatisation. En revanche, si le transport en commun est automatisé, les services
de transport en commun pourraient s’améliorer et ainsi mitiger l’augmentation de la
circulation des véhicules et de l’aménagement dispersé.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1
2. Methods ........................................................................................................ 3
3. Terminology and categories of vehicle automation ....................................... 9
4. Review of road vehicle automation technologies ........................................ 26
5. Timelines of emergence and adoption of automation ................................. 38
6. Impacts of vehicle automation on the efficiency of use of
roads and parking infrastructure ..................................................................... 50
7. Travel and land use impacts ....................................................................... 71
8. Travel and land use policy implications ...................................................... 82
9. Conclusions ................................................................................................ 88
Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use
1. Introduction
A range of driver assistance technologies, such as lane-keeping assist and adaptive
cruise control, are entering the automotive market, and more advanced technologies,
including vehicles capable of driving themselves without the intervention of a human
driver, are being developed. Many observers anticipate widespread adoption of such
technologies in the coming decades. This report examines the likely impacts of road
vehicle automation technologies on urban travel and land use, and finds that they could
significantly alter how people move through cities and how the physical form of cities
develops. While vehicles capable of operating without human intervention could still be a
few decades away, less advanced but still powerful technologies will be available within
a few years. Automation would make motor vehicle travel easier and increase capacities
on some roads, thus leading to increased motor vehicle travel and dispersed
development. These effects would depend on the particular mix of types of automated
vehicles on the road. In particular, if public transit buses are automated, transit service
could be improved, thus mitigating the increases in vehicle travel and dispersed
development.
Recently, there has been increasing interest in and speculation on the benefits that fully
automated vehicles could bring, often in popular news media; however, deeper critical
analysis is needed. In particular, it is important to better understand at what date various
forms of automation are likely to emerge, the scale of benefits they are likely to bring, the
negative impacts they could create, and the impacts that would arise while vehicle
automation is in the earlier stages of development and adoption. This latter point is
critical, since this transition period could be lengthy. In addition, it is important to
consider the potential for application of advanced automation to buses in public transit.
The overarching question that will be answered in this report is:
• How are road vehicle automation technologies likely to impact passenger travel
and land use in cities in the coming decades?
Vehicle automation could make motor vehicle travel easier, for example, by enabling a
traveler to sleep, watch a movie, or work while traveling. It could also affect the efficiency
with which roads and parking infrastructure are used; for example, it could increase road
capacities and reduce delays. These effects depend on when various types of
automation emerge onto the market and how rapidly they are adopted. A clear
understanding of these points – how automation would affect the ease of travel, how it
will affect the efficiency of use of infrastructure, and how its use will spread – is
necessary in order to understand how automation could affect travel behaviour and land
use patterns in cities. Therefore, the following subsidiary questions are answered in this
report:
• At what date are vehicle automation technologies likely to emerge onto the
market, and what are their likely trajectories of adoption?
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Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use
• How are vehicle automation technologies likely to affect the ease of travel by
motor vehicle?
• How are vehicle automation technologies likely to affect the efficiency with which
roads and parking infrastructure are used?
• How will the effects of automation on ease of travel and efficiency of
infrastructure use impact travel and land use patterns?
• What travel and land use policies would maximize the benefits and minimize the
negative impacts of vehicle automation?
The scope of this report is limited to examining the impacts of road vehicle automation
on passenger travel and land use in cities. There are a number of other issues relevant
to automation that it was not possible to examine in this research. These include the
impacts of automation on the movement of goods in cities, environmental impacts, social
equity impacts, labour impacts, and the impact on intercity travel.
The methods used in this research project are described in Section 2. Categories of
vehicle automation and various terms are explained in Section 3. The various
technologies that are on the market and that are in development are reviewed in Section
4. Likely timelines of emergence and adoption of the technologies are discussed in
Section 5. Section 6 provides a discussion of how automation can affect the efficiency
with which road and parking infrastructure is used. In Section 7, the likely travel and land
use impacts of automation are examined. In Section 8, a number of preliminary policy
recommendations are offered for the purpose of discussion. Finally, in Section 9, some
general conclusions are drawn and a number of research needs are identified.
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Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use
2. Methods
As stated in Section 1, the ultimate objective of this research is to project how road
vehicle automation technologies may shift passenger urban travel and land use patterns
in coming decades. In order to determine these impacts, it was necessary to predict the
timing and trajectory of technology adoption, and how the technologies would affect
passenger mobility. To understand the latter, it was necessary to determine how
automation would affect the efficiency of road and parking infrastructure use, and how
automation technologies would affect ease of travel. Finally, the insights formulated were
analyzed to forge preliminary recommendations for travel and land use policy designed
to maximize technology benefits and minimize negative impacts. The methods used in
this project to meet these objectives are briefly described in this section.
Overall, the research process consisted of the following main components.
1. Review literature and interview experts to determine what automation
technologies have been developed and are in development, to categorize those
technologies, and to understand their capabilities and limitations.
2. Review literature to clarify different ways to categorize automation.
3. Review literature and interview experts to determine the likely timing and rates of
automation technology adoption. Develop simple models that estimate the rates
of adoption of automation to compare against the predicted or speculated rates
of adoption found in the literature reviewed and in the interviews conducted.
4. Review literature and interview experts to determine how vehicle automation
would affect the efficiency with which roads and parking infrastructure are used.
5. Infer the likely travel and land use impacts of vehicle automation from the
capabilities and limitations of automation technologies, their likely trajectories of
emergence and adoption, and their effects on the efficiency of use roads and
parking infrastructure. Develop multiple scenarios to account for uncertainties in
inputs and processes.
6. Examine policy implications of the impacts described in the scenarios.
The overall approach to these research components draws from technology assessment
and social impact assessment approaches. Briefly, the technology assessment process1
consists of a review of the state of the art of the technology, a projection of its possible
paths of development, an assessment of various impacts of the technology, such as
environmental and economic impacts, and a comparison of feasible policy options. A
social impact assessment describes existing social conditions and trends, identifies likely

1 E.g., see Coates (2001).
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Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use
social impacts from a project or technology, estimates the probable size of those
impacts, and evaluates their significance to those affected for alternative projects or
technologies.2 The technology assessment and social impact assessment approaches
served as models for the development of an analytical procedure, consisting of the six
components described above, which was tailored to meet the research objectives within
the time and resource constraints of the project.
The first four components of the research project, as described above, entailed an
extensive review of literature. There is little previous scholarly literature that broadly
assesses the potential impacts of vehicle automation on transportation and land use in
cities. However, there is a sizeable academic literature that engages with more particular
related issues, such as the potential impacts of automation on freeway capacity, the
interaction of humans with vehicle automation, and potential applications to public
transit. In addition, there is a wealth of non-academic literature that directly engages,
albeit in a less critical fashion, with the broader questions that are the focus of this study.
A wide range of such literatures was reviewed for the present research project. In order
to collect a large amount of relevant literature, an exhaustive literature search was
conducted through intensive online searches using numerous query terms in search
tools such as Google, Google Scholar, and digital academic databases, and through
regular searches of academic journals, conference proceedings and presentations,
online print and video news media, trade magazines, blogs, and social media. In keeping
with the emerging nature of the topic of research, the literature search was conducted
continuously throughout the course of the research in order to stay abreast of breaking
technological or other developments. In addition, experts were interviewed to
supplement the insights derived from the literatures reviewed. The research project
primarily relied on a synthesis of findings from these literatures, with additional insights
gleaned from the interviews.
Regarding the interviews mentioned in the context of the first, third, and fourth
components, a number of individuals of interest were identified in the course of the
literature review. They were chosen for their expertise in selected issues to provide
corroboration for the literature or where the literature was deemed inadequate – for
example, interviews refined the understanding of likely emergence trajectories for
various technologies. Four experts were interviewed in semi-structured interviews (not
all have been cited in this report). Interviewees were asked questions drawn from a list
of discussion topics and open-ended questions where the choice of questions and their
wording was flexible.3 The topics included: the level of current development of
automation technologies; the likely dates of emergence of technologies onto the market,
and the likely rates of adoption; the effects of automation on the efficiency of use of
roads and parking infrastructure; the use of automation in buses; and driverless taxis.

2 Summaries of typical social impact assessment procedures are given by the Centre for Good Governance
(2006) and Becker and Vanclay (2003).
3 Berg, 2001
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Road vehicle automation technologies: anticipating the impacts on urban travel and land use
For the second component of the research described above, where different ways to
categorize automation were clarified, a range of sources were consulted, including
academic articles regarding categories of automation, announcements from
governmental bodies, and conference presentations. The results of this component of
research are primarily reported in Section 3.
For the first and third components of the research described above, namely those
addressing the range of automation technologies and their likely pattern of emergence
and adoption, non-traditional resources were an important complement to the academic
articles and conference presentations consulted. A large number of media reports,
corporate press releases, and a variety of online sources such as blogs were examined.
Though the quality of fact-checking in some of these latter sources was inconsistent, the
relative reliability of sources was established by “triangulating” and examining a large
number of reports from a variety of sources, especially from academic sources, and
especially reports that contained full quotations and that accurately reported verifiable
facts. Given the emerging nature of vehicle automation, these less formal literatures
provide an indispensable source of information, though they must be read with an
additional degree of criticality and caution. In addition, directed questions asked in
interviews with experts helped to provide greater levels of certainty in interpreting these
literatures. To assess the various technology development predictions found in the
literature and in expert interviews, two simple models were developed to estimate the
rates of adoption of automation. The results from these simple calculations were used to
provide some comparison with the predicted or speculated rates of adoption found in the
literature reviewed and in the interviews conducted. The results of these research
components are primarily reported in Sections 4 and 5.
For the fourth component of the research described above, where it was determined
how vehicle automation would affect the efficiency with which roads and parking
infrastructure are used, literature was reviewed and experts were interviewed. There
exist some substantial academic literatures regarding this topic. These academic
literatures primarily pertain to vehicle platooning, applications of vehicle automation in
intersections, automation in buses, and research and development projects exploring
various forms of automated vehicles. These literatures provided useful information on
how various forms of automation could alter the use of roads and parking infrastructure.
Directed questions posed in expert interviews helped to provide greater levels of
certainty in interpreting these literatures. The results of this component of research were
primarily reported in Section 6.
For the fifth component of the research described above, where the likely travel and land
use impacts of vehicle automation were inferred, the understandings gained during the
preceding components of research were combined with established insights regarding
relationships between travel and land use found in the travel and land use literature, and
with the findings from a relatively small literature on automation’s impact on travel and
land use. These various insights were used to infer the likely impacts of automation on
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