ULI Panel Explores Wider Implications of Driverless Car Technology
By Michael Hoban
As the viability of driverless cars moves closer to reality, it is becoming abundantly clear that the technology will have much wider implications than just the perceived advantages of hands (and attention) free driving. The impact fully automated vehicle transportation systems can have on public and private development and public infrastructure – as well as the impending transitional period to achieve that end – were the subjects of a lively discussion by a panel of experts at ULI Boston/New England’s recent event, “Developing for a Driverless World,” held at the offices of Wilmer Hale.
Moderated by William Lyons, president and founder of the Fort Hill Companies, the panel featured Don Briggs, executive VP of development at Federal Realty Investment Trust; Kris Carter, co-chair of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics for the City of Boston; Wes Guckert, president and CEO of Maryland-based traffic engineering and transportation planning consulting firm The Traffic Group; and Jenny Larios Berlin, co-founder and CMO of Cambridge-based Optimus Ride, a startup that is developing self-driving technologies.
Berlin led off the discussion with a primer on autonomous vehicles, as well as an overview of where the technology currently stands and what’s on the horizon. The practical use of a vehicle capable of effectively navigating without human input is still in the development stage, but huge strides are being made in automation, as evidenced by vehicles like Tesla’s Model S. “You still have to be in the driver’s seat, but can start to let go, and cede a lot more of the elements of control of the vehicle,” said Berlin. So while the latest technology will automatically steer or change lanes (on the highway only) and can park on its own, a driver is still a necessary component.
Completely driverless cars are not yet approved for road use anywhere in the world, but once the technology is viable, the benefits will extend far beyond the safety and fuel efficiency considerations that the current iterations offer. Full adoption of driverless car technology will open the doors to massive changes, Berlin asserted, including increased productivity (transit time becomes productive time); a decrease in car ownership and a shift to ride-sharing; increased access for non-licensed drivers (such as children, seniors, and the disabled); a marked decrease in traffic congestion; and more efficient (public and private) land use policies as ride-sharing reduces the need for parking structures and lots.
Federal Realty is trying to stay ahead of the technology curve by partnering with Audi on their Urban Future Initiative, a pilot program that will locate a fleet of driverless vehicles at a new parking facility being developed at Assembly Row in Somerville, Mass. The new facility will be constructed for self-parking vehicles, and is estimated to reduce space dedicated to parking by about 62 percent. According to Briggs, it is an initial step in Audi’s business plan designed to gauge human behavior – to see if consumers would adapt to the driverless vehicles if a fleet were readily available to them.
Briggs also pointed out that Audi is taking a long-range view of the emerging technology. “I think everyone should keep in mind that the real challenge isn’t what happens 10 or 30 years from now when we have completely autonomous vehicles on the road,” he observed. “The real challenge is what happens between now and then. Because if there’s a mix of autonomous vehicles and driver vehicles, that’s the riskiest point in time.” He predicts that when all vehicle operation is completely autonomous, the system will work fluidly, but the business models that are going to succeed during that period are those that will anticipate the changes and effectively manage the transition from the present to that future. “What we’re trying to figure out – with Audi – is if there’s a fleet of vehicles, what does that do to our parking requirement and our infrastructure development? Because we’re 15-20 years ahead of where we think it will have an impact on the built environment.”
The City of Boston does not own any parking garages that would realize such efficiencies, but Carter reminded the audience that there is an enormous amount of on-street parking in the city, “And I am not of the belief that on-street car parking is the highest and best use of that land.”
Parking spaces are typically 14 feet long and seven feet wide on either side of nearly every road in the city, for cars that move an average of 10 percent during the course of a day. “And we can reallocate all of that road space and property that is used for parking for other uses, whether it’s building more housing, allocating it for green space…or for walking or biking or mass transit,” said Carter. The City is also looking for off-street test locations for driverless cars as well as potential on-street locations for the future, and are closely monitoring the work being done by the states of California and Michigan with driverless cars.
In addition to reclaiming underutilized property now being taken up by parking structures and lots, the panel discussed the efficiencies that could be gained on existing roadways with fully autonomous vehicles, including BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) systems. “There’s going to be a time period when the government is going to say, ‘Why should we spend a bazillion dollars (developing new road systems) when before long, we’re going to be able to change the lane widths and increase capacity by 25 percent?’” predicted Guckert, who agreed with other panel members that car ownership will decrease dramatically as consumers continue to acclimate to the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing experience. “Once you start doing the shared mobility stuff, it becomes real easy to say, ‘I’m going to reduce my cost per mile from 60 cents to a dollar per mile to 15 to 30 cents per mile.’ The people who were spending more than $10,000-$15,000 per year (on vehicles) are now spending $5,000-$6,000 for transportation, and now you’ve got excess income to be able to do other things.”
Following the discussion, moderator Lyons (who recently delivered the presentation, “Autonomous Vehicles & The Transportation Theory of Everything” at the Northeast District Meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers) shared his thoughts. “Perhaps one of the evolutions of this [technology] is that we don’t do more public transit expansion projects, as autonomous vehicles may fill the void of the ever expanding requirement for equitable mobility,” he offered. “Look at South Coast Rail, it’s a very expensive project, very expensive per rider. What if a very cost-effective four rubber tire fleet could achieve the same outcomes in passenger delivery, better and cheaper?”
So, while driverless technology is still some years away from being adapted, land use experts are already lined up to quantify the benefits communities will receive.
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