01660431

Component

With 36 ventures testing autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the State of California, commercial deployment of this disruptive technology is almost around the corner (1). Different business models of AVs, including Shared AVs (SAVs) and Private AVs (PAVs), will lead to significantly different changes in regional vehicle inventory and Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT). Most prior studies have already explored the impact of SAVs on vehicle ownership and VMT generation. Limited understanding has been gained regarding vehicle ownership reduction and unoccupied VMT generation potentials in the era of PAVs. Motivated by such research gap, this study develops models to examine how much vehicle ownership reduction can be achieved once private conventional vehicles are replaced by AVs and the spatial distribution of unoccupied VMT accompanied with the vehicle reduction. The models are implemented using travel survey and synthesized trip profile from Atlanta Metropolitan Area. The results show that more than 18% of the households can reduce vehicles while maintaining the current travel patterns. This can be translated into a 9.5% reduction in private vehicles in the study region. Meanwhile, 29.8 unoccupied VMT will be induced per day per reduced vehicles. A majority of the unoccupied VMT will be loaded on interstate highways and expressways, and the largest percentage inflation in VMT will occur on minor local roads. The results can provide implications for evolving trends in household vehicles uses and the location of dedicated AV lanes in the PAV dominated future.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB50 Standing Committee on Transportation Planning Applications.

18-04293

English

17p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Automobile ownership; Intelligent vehicles; Vehicle miles of travel

Atlanta Metropolitan Area

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-04293

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 11:03AM