The Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles and E-Commerce: On Local Government Budgeting and Finance
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Date
2017-08
Authors
Clark, Benjamin Y.
Larco, Nico
Mann, Roberta F.
Journal Title
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Abstract
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are already being used and their proliferation is inevitable.
AVs have the potential to fundamentally alter transportation systems by averting deadly
crashes, providing critical mobility to the elderly and disabled, increasing road capacity,
saving fuel, and lowering emissions (Fagnant and Kockelman 2015). Eighteen states
and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation regarding AVs1, and the governors
of four other states have signed executive orders about AVs2 (National Conference
of State Legislatures 2017). In 2017 there were 33 states that had introduced AV
legislation, up from 20 in 2016 (National Conference of State Legislatures 2017). As of
June 2, 2017, there were 31 companies that had received permits from the California
DMV to test autonomous vehicles, and the list is getting longer each month (California
Department of Motor Vehicles 2017). In Berlin, Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s largest train
and bus operator, is testing a driverless twelve-passenger shuttle bus (Scott 2017).
Over 20 pilot or existing AV public transport programs have taken place in Europe. And
the most recent AV testing permit recipient in California is a private shuttle bus operator—
Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation (California Department of Motor Vehicles 2017). Much has been written about the technical challenges of integrating autonomous vehicles
into traffic patterns, but to date, there has been little consideration of the significant
secondary impacts that AVs present. This project aims to fill that gap. AVs have the
potential to transform cities – but whether the impact is positive or not depends on
how the AVs are used. If AVs use clean fuels, are used for shared rides, and become
an on-demand service rather than an owned product, cities and society may benefit.
Consumer-owned cars are inefficient and underused assets – most are used for less
than one hour per day (OECD 2015), sitting idle for about 95 of their life, and about 10
percent of the average American’s budget goes to the cost of purchasing and fueling
private vehicles (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016). AVs will impact land use planning,
transit use, government revenues, and may exacerbate societal inequality by reducing
the viability of existing public transportation services. The goal of this white paper is to consider the impact of AVs on municipal budgets.
AVs create a “potential rat’s nest of a budgeting challenge” (Fung 2016). This paper
seeks to begin the process of untangling that rat’s nest, and provide the foundation for
future phases of the project that will consider potential additional revenue sources to
fund the infrastructure changes that may come from the integration of AVs as well as
land use planning implications.
Description
26 pages
Keywords
Autonomous vehicles, Local government, Municipal budgets, Government finance, E-commerce