Autonomous vehicles: The legal and policy road ahead
CTS Catalyst summarizes some of the discussion from the recent Conference Autonomous vehicles: The legal and policy road ahead
... David Levinson hypothesized some possible directions:
Autonomous vehicles enable more car sharing. Instead of the sunk cost of car ownership, people pay the marginal cost per trip—and thus make fewer trips.
Shared cars can be right-sized for any given trip, so fewer large cars are needed. Increased safety reassures people about driving smaller cars.
Smaller cars travel closely together on narrower lanes, so capacity increases.
As networks get faster, people choose to travel farther. Cities decentralize and more megacities and “placeless places” develop.
At the same time, inner cities get denser, as less space is needed for parking and garages.
With lower labor costs, transit becomes more cost-effective.
Driverless trucks lower delivery costs. Combined with drones, robotics, and online shopping, retail shopping declines.