To paraphrase the advice given in the Wizard of Oz, it is time to follow the money to see where the path to autonomy leads. Summarizing his thoughts on the Automated Vehicles Symposium 16 conference, Paul Godsmark, CTO of the Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence, suggests that now is the time to start looking closely at how the business models for autonomous vehicles will shape deployments.

He suggests that the business models are moving toward autonomous, on-demand fleets. Autonomous fleets and ride-sharing offer the potential to lower the cost of transportation, compared to the traditional car ownership model. As such, he believes that this compelling consumer proposition will lead to rapid uptake of Transportation as a Service by commuters (e.g. Ford’s push for autonomous ridesharing by 2021). The upside to the promise of these autonomous fleets is a major reduction in congestion; as Godsmark points out, one autonomous shared vehicle could replace between 2 to 13 cars (e.g., see Interview with Dan Fagnant for the summary of his study on this topic).

According to Godsmark, city governments need to be proactive about the deployment of autonomous vehicles. He suggests that, “automated vehicles aren’t just cars and that they can actually be used as a tool to improve how the city operates, to make it cleaner, to reduce emissions, to make it safer and achieve the city goals.” He lauds Gabe Klein’s comments at AVS16 suggesting that autonomy is something that should be part of an urban planner’s toolkit.

Still, he thinks that we are just scratching the surface of the transformative potential of autonomous mobility. Removing the human driver provides designers with a clean canvas, meaning the form, function and interaction of future vehicles could be much different from today.

Godsmark says we will see new modes of autonomous vehicles, such as pods that form into virtual trains when they are going in the same direction and then dynamically peel off to reach their destinations (stay tuned for a future interview with a start-up taking this approach). This will provide the same density as a bus or a train, but with the benefit to the commuter of being able to bring them directly to their destination. Godsmark calls this sort of solution a “game changer”.

More than increasing throughput and reducing congestion, Godsmark indicates that the autonomous fleet approach promises a better return on investment, as compared to rail projects (e.g. Canberra, Australia study comparing rail to autonomous fleet). The difference is that, by utilizing existing roads, the capital cost for autonomous fleets is largely incremental, as opposed to the huge fixed costs and long planning cycles of rail.

Because it utilizes the existing road infrastructure, any form of vehicle can be used. He suggests that more efficient road utilization, will allow for reconfiguration of roads to make them more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Godsmark implores planners to “use our imaginations more, break out of the current paradigm and its thinking and think about the possibilities – this new toolkit of possibilities that the autonomous vehicle opens up for us.”

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

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