A paper by Grush and Niles has been named Runner-up for the best conference paper at the 2016 annual Canadian Transportation Research Forum in Toronto. The paper, “How cities can use autonomous vehicles to increase transit ridership and reduce household vehicle ownership” was one of 100 papers presented at the conference.

From the Introduction:

Automated vehicles and connected vehicles are highly anticipated. It is expected that over the next few decades innovations related to these two technology vectors will transform the automotive industry, personal mobility, public transportation, the taxi industry, land use, urban planning, transportation infrastructure, jobs, vehicle ownership, and many other physical and social aspects of our built world and our daily lives.

However certain we may be that fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) will dominate motorized urban and inter-urban transportation in the foreseeable future, everything else including its timing, cost, labour disruption, congestion, rights of way, and the management of interim fleets of mixed autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles can only be surmised. The constellation of unpredictable barriers and unforeseen innovations is far more extensive than the cornucopia of potential and hoped-for benefits.   [Download…]