Autonomous Vehicles: How U.S. Cities are Preparing
| dc.contributor.advisor | Richard Margerum | |
| dc.contributor.author | Whitney, Jenna | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-11-07T19:34:40Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-11-07T19:34:40Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018 | |
| dc.description | 56 pages | |
| dc.description.abstract | As fully-autonomous vehicles become closer to reality than fiction, cities race to prepare for the emerging technology that promises to all but erase the need for parking while simultaneously threatening to make cities explode in sprawling development. Self-driving cars have just one key variance from conventional transportation options – the lack of a driver – but could affect travel behavior and city development as strongly as the automobile did in the 20th century. The literature is consistent in its recommendations for promoting active, multi-modal, and public transportation in the arrival of autonomous vehicles (AVs), and for using AVs to improve safety, reduce congestion and emissions, and persuade riders to switch from privately-owned vehicles to ride hailing or ride sharing. However, the absence of a history with AVs means that there is a deficiency in understanding how cities in the US are altering their transportation plans to prepare for autonomous vehicles. This leads to this study’s driving research questions: 1. What does the literature suggest the impacts of autonomous vehicles will be, and how does the literature suggest preparing for these impacts? 2. How are cities in the US preparing for autonomous vehicles in their transportation plans? 3. How do city plans for AVs compare to what the literature says cities should be doing? After identifying commonly found themes and recommendations for implementation in the literature, a systematic literature review of cities recognized as having plans for autonomous vehicles reveals if and how US cities are preparing for AVs. In general, the city preparations show a mutual agreement with the goals given in the literature, such as prioritizing public transit and ride sharing, using electric vehicles, curbing sprawl and congestion, and aiding first/last-mile connections. Themes that were not as comprehensively discussed by cities as by the literature are planning for point-to-point services and active or multi-modal transportation. A comparison of how the study cities are preparing in relation to the counsel from the literature shows that there is a wide range of preparedness. Some cities with plans for AVs have only a few stated goals, such as preferring AVs that are used for public transit or shared, and electrically powered. Other cities have dozens of policies that depict how AVs will be allowed to operate as public transit, ride hailing services, and privately-owned vehicles; including details about payment for services, which vehicle models will be used, and how AVs will provide more equitable transportation. Conclusively, city preparations acknowledge the themes given by the literature, but do not always address it at thoroughly as the literature would demand. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25088 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US | |
| dc.subject | autonomous vehicles | en_US |
| dc.subject | cities | en_US |
| dc.subject | preparing | en_US |
| dc.title | Autonomous Vehicles: How U.S. Cities are Preparing | |
| dc.type | Terminal Project |
Files
Original bundle
1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
- Name:
- JWhitney_ExitProj_Final.pdf
- Size:
- 1.16 MB
- Format:
- Adobe Portable Document Format