Effect of autonomous vehicles on travel and urban characteristics

Peng Liu, Shu-Xian Xu, Ghim Ping Ong, Qiong Tian and Shoufeng Ma

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2021, vol. 153, issue C, 128-148

Abstract: This study considers a closed core-suburb city connected by a highway. Two travel modes, namely on-demand and frequency-based autonomous vehicles (AVs), are used for commuting between the suburb and urban core. Each resident attempts to maximize his/her individual utility with consideration to environment quality by choosing a residential location, travel mode, departure time, and non-housing composite consumption good within an expenditure budget. The traffic equilibria are analytically derived for two right-of-way policies, namely (i) the two travel modes sharing the right-of-way and (ii) frequency-based AVs-priority, with consideration of the effect of AVs on travel and urban characteristics. It was found from the analytical results that at any level of AV automation, adopting the frequency-based AVs-priority policy can reduce travel cost for suburban residents while alleviating traffic congestion. Furthermore, an increase in AV automation level results in an increase in expected trip time if the highway capacity is less elastic than the value of travel time for on-demand AVs with respect to the automation level. In addition, if the environment quality depends solely on the residential density, with an increasing level of AV automation, the suburban population and the number of residents using on-demand AVs increase, the land rent in the urban core reduces, the suburb expands, and the utility for all residents increases. These findings help to provide a better understanding of the interactions between AVs, travel and urban characteristics, and serve as a valuable reference to transportation-urban planning in the era of driving automation.

Keywords: On-demand and frequency-based AVs; Automation level; Traffic equilibrium; Urban spatial equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2021.08.014

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