The Case for CAVs
Intro
As Ricardo Bobisse and Andrea Pavia describe in their book “Automatic for the City”, “Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are vehicles that integrate both autonomous and connected technologies. It is the combination of these technologies that promises to bring the most radical and potentially positive changes to cities”. As a self proclaimed public transit nerd, I have always been skeptical of the tech bro, venture capitalist claims that autonomous vehicles will be the big, flashy, Swiss Army knife that will fix everything about mobility in cities. After all, CAVs are still cars in most of their current and conceived forms, designed to carry 1-4 individuals at a time on asphalt roads cutting through the urban fabrics of America. Arguably, buses and trains could accomplish the same goals cars and CAVs set out to achieve, but more efficiently and equitably. As the space continues to see growth and increased coverage in the media, I decided I should broaden my horizons a bit. According to my Philosophy professor Dr. Edmonds, any complex concept/issue that you can universally agree with is one you need to research further. So I suppose you could count this article as a bit of opposition research for myself, as I take on a “scout mindset” to learn more about some of the potential benefits of CAVs, and why we should consider them in future mobility planning. This is not a “how to CAV” guide by any means, but rather a glimpse into what a future with CAVs could look like, highlighting some of the possibly unconsidered upsides to the technology if developed further.
American Cities Are Designed for the Motor Vehicle
Unfortunately, it’s fairly unreasonable to expect public transportation to go everywhere within most American cities in their current form. Even a trip on transit in Ann Arbor, an area that has impressive bus service throughout most of the city due to the presence of a large public university, can be plagued by a 20-30 minute walk on unpleasant streets with skinny sidewalks when not in the downtown or university districts. Biking and walking can also be effective last mile solutions, but requires a precursor of cities (and it’s citizens) taking initiative to redesign their streets in a thoughtful way that prioritizes those active modes of transportation. While the suburbs of many major cities should be able to make this transition, many sprawled, peri-urban or rural areas would be lucky to see the infrastructural changes required to facilitate active forms of last mile transportation — walking or biking, in addition to the bolstered bus or train service required to compliment them — within the next decade. Consider the extreme cultural shift required, and the goal only seems harder to grasp.
In this case, autonomous vehicles may prove to be an efficient form of last mile transportation within low-density areas currently designed to be traversed by cars. CAVs come in a form familiar to many Americans that still allows for effective mobility through our currently car-designed communities, possibly without some of the negative side-effects of private vehicle ownership. CAVs, for one, are flexible in their routes and where they need to reach to accommodate other modes of transportation. Most CAV systems proposed today would be able to start at a suburban home, and complete a trip all the way to a city center, or any point in between (hopefully at a light rail stop, or BRT station).
CAV Development Is Beneficial to Other Forms of Mobility
If autonomous vehicles are to be effectively integrated into people-oriented urban spaces, the “C” in CAV cannot be overlooked. Vehicles must be truly connected to their surroundings through both vehicle to vehicle (V2V), and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication using real-time positioning, telemetry, and other data, to ensure safety for all road users, and to keep people as the main focus of urban spaces. Effective implementation of this technology would allow vehicles to effortlessly navigate city streets avoiding congestion and traffic collisions, while also creating opportunities for people oriented movement of pedestrians and cyclists. The movements of CAVs can be completely predicted and intentional, allowing for currently unobtainable levels of traffic automation and flow. With a human first, tech second approach, CAVs can be effortlessly integrated into urban spaces while also increasing efficiency.
Ultimately, while all of this is critical for CAVs to assimilate into people centered urban design, the ideas mentioned could also drastically improve public transportation services. Many open-source standards widely used in different technology fields today have originally spurred from private innovations, especially in transit. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) was formerly named the Google Transit Feed Specification as it was the brainchild of a Google Maps developer to improve transit scheduling within the app. GTFS is now one of the most widely used real-time location and scheduling protocols worldwide for many other purposes than just Google Maps. Developments like these are sometimes only possible by utilizing the capital and workforce power of private companies, with hope that the tech will be further developed into a universal standard to be easily adopted everywhere. CAV technology is in the unique position of requiring companies to approach development with a universal focus from the start. If true connectedness (and efficiency, and safety, and…) is to be achieved, the autonomous vehicle space cannot afford a plethora of different, inharmonious standards to be behind the hood, or to not consider public transit in trip/route planning, and roadway navigation. These new, advanced communication and connectivity standards will not only benefit CAVs but also have the ability to propel public transportation to new levels of efficiency and connectivity with its patrons, and the built environment around the system.
CAVs Dissolve Many Negative Side Effects of Private Vehicle Travel
A fact well known in urbanist and planning circles is that one of the most detrimental effects to private vehicle ownership is the storage of said vehicles after reaching their destination. Parking takes up valuable space, often in the direct center of urban cores that could be better used as people oriented, people scale amenities and urban form. An often overlooked aspect of CAV travel is that a non-ownership model of automotive transportation can offer great improvements to efficiency of space and infrastructure. Most parking in city centers would be effectively eliminated, with only a small portion being re-allocated to loading and unloading zones. If implemented, a significant amount of valuable space could be reclaimed for people, making our streets whole again. By eliminating the need for self parking, CAVs also eliminate the endless searches for parking spots by private drivers in downtown cores. According to Donald Shoup in a 2013 study, “Ten studies conducted in eight cities between 1927 and 2011 found that an average of 34% of cars in congested downtown traffic were cruising for parking.” Not only does this have a large environmental impact on reducing VMT, it reduces the amount of cars that pedestrians, cyclists and other users of the streets need to interact with.
CAVs can also play a role in drastic environmental and societal improvements related to mobility if implemented into urban environments properly. According to a 2018 report by the US Department of Transportation, cars with low seat occupancy spend over 600 billion driving hours per year on roadways, and 96% of a vehicle’s time is spent parked. A shift away from individual vehicle ownership would have a significant impact on both of these issues — where the utility of a single connected autonomous vehicle can replace the utility of up to 10 conventional vehicles depending on the situation. The de-individualized nature of ride hailing services may also prove to help offset some of the emissions related to new electric car production. Providing alternatives to private ownership of vehicles could ultimately result in lower production levels of vehicles for consumer purchase, which as markets have shown would be predominantly EVs, therefore saving significant amounts of precious metals and emissions required to produce their batteries and other parts.
Planning for CAVs in Urban Spaces Will Prevent a Takeover, Like Those Observed Previously
As explained in their book “Automatic for the City”, Riccardo Bobisse and Andrea Pavia believe that one of the key reasons automobiles dominate our cities today is due to a lack of proper, thoughtful planning into how they should have been integrated into urban life at the time. In an effort to prioritize traffic efficiency and speed, planners have forgotten the initial goals of cities, to bring people together to connect them on a more personal level. Bobisse and Pavia believe that casting CAVs to the side and not actively planning for their existence into future mobility plans will result in a similar fate. Specifically, simply planning for CAVs on a surface level is not enough to allow the widespread adoption of this technology within cities, so we must ensure that planning for people is at the forefront of the minds of planners and designers alike. In a new era of mobility, we have the ability to choose how autonomous vehicles mesh into the society we want to create (or if they belong at all).
As outlined above, CAVs will alleviate a large amount of vehicular traffic on city streets, in addition to valuable parking space along those same streets. When this happens, technofuturist investors looking to fulfill their infinite growth paradox will simply crave more space dedicated to CAV travel, but this is the planners’ chance to put their feet down and finally restrict vehicles to only the necessary space needed to move people effectively, while also prioritizing and improving other road user experiences. Instead of bending the needs of cyclists and pedestrians around those of the CAVs, officials should utilize the advanced technologies of CAVs to adapt their behavior to the needs of the most vulnerable road users. Take the concept of platooning, for example. In practice, this would look like a pack of CAVs traveling together in close headway formations through a section of the city, using calculated decisions made through V2V and V2I communication. This convention, if combined with effective, people first urban design, can reduce wasted time and energy waiting at signals, improving the efficiency of roadways, all while also reclaiming saved space for walkable boulevards, cycle tracks, and new communities. The practice can also reduce the amount of conflicts between CAVs and pedestrians, and keep visual permeability through breaks in platoons. There will be a pivotal moment in the AV adoption timeline in which internal stakeholders must decide whether or not to allow the VC tech firms behind many CAV companies to dominate urban life; similar to the beginnings of the automotive industry. The past can either be repeated, or we, as change makers, can redefine our streets for people with CAVs being a guest in a new, clean house.
CAVs Are Already Here
At this point, one may think that all of the benefits presented here can also be obtained through increased public transportation, and as far as I am aware, that would be a correct assertion. The question of if private companies and techno-futuristic driverless vehicles should be a part of the mobility equation is beyond the scope of this article, and clearly a question I am conflicted on myself. However, a key fact cannot be ignored: CAVs are already present and in-service on city streets, and many believe the industry is slated to keep growing. Despite some key players halting operations, and funding slowing, growth in the AV sector continues, with predictions of fully autonomous taxis being widely available in most large cities by 2030. According to a 2024 industry report by McKinsey & Company, “About 60 percent of [key AV decision makers within governments and companies] still believe regulation is the biggest bottleneck to autonomous-vehicle adoption…”, as many stakeholders believe it should be. Local, state and federal governments should swiftly act to keep a firm grip on the deployment of autonomous vehicles on public streets, while also not opposing and ignoring development entirely. Governments need to take a proactive approach to effectively guide the deployment of CAVs into everyday life, while keeping people (not profit) as the driving motivation. This is the only way to see real, meaningful progress in the accessibility of cities when considering CAVs.
Unfortunately, this is already not a priority for municipalities who are allowing CAVs onto their streets. San Francisco, a city that has had AVs roaming for more than 5 years already, has started experiencing its first signs of AV disarray, and even revolution. Already over 1 year ago, police officer body camera footage showcased a Waymo AV approaching an emergency scene, not being able to identify the situation clearly enough to re-route. To prevent the vehicle from driving over a charged fire hose, officers had to stand in front of the vehicle and did not know of an immediate way to disable the vehicle. With over 50 AV incident reports received in just 8 months, and little communication received from the robotaxi companies, the SFFD has had their fair share of frustrations with AVs in emergency situations (LINK), and just recently a crowd of protesters set a Waymo vehicle ablaze. These situations even being allowed to materialize illustrate a deep institutional failure on the part of the governing agencies permitting AV activities, and should be a stark indication of how things can progress if people are not the focus of further CAV deployment in cities.
The intention of this piece is not to be an autonomous vehicle puff piece, but instead provide a foundation for necessary conversations within the space to ensure that if CAVs are to be implemented in the cities of tomorrow (or today), they are done so in the right fashion to ensure a prosperous future for all. It’s frustrating to hear urbanists and members of the planning community completely cast AVs to the side, citing the efficiencies and equities of public transportation as a reason to not consider this aspect of an accessible future. There is clearly more to the story than what meets the eye of the extreme supporters and opponents of autonomous vehicle technology. Without critically thinking about the future of mobility within cities, and the possible role CAVs can play, it is all but guaranteed that the result will be detrimental to urban life.
Thanks for reading. This is my third ever blog post! I am aiming to post a piece every month on topics relating to urban planning/technology, transportation, public policy, socio-economics, and more. I hope you’ll follow along for more.
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