What if autonomous vehicles had been introduced into cities? A counterfactual analysis

Haotian Zhong and Wei Li
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Haotian Zhong: Renmin University of China, China
Wei Li: Texas A&M University, USA

Urban Studies, 2023, vol. 60, issue 16, 3198-3215

Abstract: The impact of autonomous vehicles on the spatial size of cities remains ambiguous, as the future is highly uncertain. This paper uses counterfactual analysis techniques to examine the effects of autonomous vehicles on urban expansion for metropolitan areas in the United States if autonomous vehicles had been introduced before. We argue that distance cost and congestion cost, which are the two components of transportation cost with different effects on urban expansion, should be addressed in autonomous vehicle research. By coupling historical data with hypothetical scenarios of introducing autonomous vehicles to cities, we find that urban expansion, rather than urban densification, would have been the dominant effect if autonomous vehicles had been introduced into cities. The finding indicates that if autonomous vehicles are widely adopted in the future, they are likely to have similar, or even larger, effects on future urban expansion than in the counterfactual past.

Keywords: autonomous vehicles; counterfactual analysis; density; transportation costs; urban expansion; 自动驾驶汽车ã€; å äº‹å®žåˆ†æž ã€; 密度ã€; è¿ è¾“æˆ æœ¬ã€; åŸŽå¸‚æ‰©å¼ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:16:p:3198-3215

DOI: 10.1177/00420980231165420

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