The Future of Autonomous Vehicles: Lessons from the Literature on Technology Adoption

Abstract

The introduction and adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs) will likely reshape the transportation system and many economic activities. The economic literature on technology adoption, based on studies in agriculture and other sectors, provides lessons on the diffusion of AVs and its social and economic impacts. We rely on the threshold model of diffusion, where heterogeneous agents make decisions pursuing their self-interests. Applications of the threshold model point to case studies of other technologies where one can gain information and make predictions about the future of AVs. We find that private ownership of AVs may prevail after a transition period, as was the case in other technologies like computers, tractors, and conventional vehicles. With technological progress, the cost of privately owning AVs may decline. Further, there will be an increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita, there may be more vehicles on the road, and perhaps the transportation user-base will expand to include those currently facing limited mobility. Congestion is likely to depend on the tradeoff between the expansion of VMT and increased efficiency of AVs to communicate and help regulate traffic. Furthermore, differentiation of vehicles will increase as driving time becomes freed for other activities. These trends may lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions and expansion of the transportation sector. Finally, the technology will evolve and may result in complementary innovations needing to be addressed, including the "last 10 feet" problem. It is evident that the future of the transportation system governed by AVs is most likely not going to be sustainable. This necessitates the importance of developing and enforcing rigorous policies at the metropolitan level and TNC levels to ensure a sustainable evolution of the future of transportation mobility.

Lessons to be learned in adoption of autonomous equipment for field crops

“…Countries seeking to be technology leaders and capture some of the business growth that is expected to come with autonomous vehicles are trying to standardize regulation at the national level. Kaplan et al (2019) predict that regulatory concerns from consumer safety advocates and the traditional automotive industry will delay the widespread commercialization of autonomous vehicles.…”

Estimating the Impacts of AV and CAV and Technologies Transportation Systems for Medium, Long, and Buildout Transportation Planning Horizons

“…The number of possible scenarios is infinite; however, two demonstrative scenarios are discussed. These are based on AV/CAV projection literature ( [12,45,46]), testing by the researchers, vehicle ownership turnover, and intuitive assumptions of technology advancements for AVs.…”

Private or On-Demand Autonomous Vehicles? Modeling Public Interest Using a Multivariate Model

“…Over the last decade, the transportation industry, academia, and media worlds have been considering the concept of autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a promising solution to the current negative externalities of transportation. It is believed that the AVs-that utilize the combination of global positional systems (GPS), light detection and ranging (LIDAR), and machine learning applications to enable self-driving abilities (Kaplan et al, 2019)-will improve overall traffic safety (Ye and Yamamoto, 2019), mobility (Coppola and Silvestri, 2019), accessibility and equity (Cohn et al, 2019), and environmental efficiency (Kopelias et al, 2020) of the transportation system despite the concerns related to equipment and system safety performance (Acharya and Humagain, 2022), higher cost (Emory et al, 2022), data privacy and security (Acharya andMekker, 2022a, 2022b), and legal liabilities (Alawadhi et al, 2020). In addition to these, a huge shift in travel behavior, especially the mode choice, travel-based activities, and travel patterns, is expected (Dannemiller et al, 2021).…”