Impacts on Transit

Fehr and Peers have been modeling the impacts of autonomous vehicles on transit and their projections are dire.  Coupled with a 12-68% increase in VMT will be a 16-43% decrease in transit trips.  This would severely strain transit systems throughout the country – forcing many to close and constraining the network and service frequency of those that survive.  This has tremendous implications for equity concerns, development patterns, and congestion. The reduction of transit services will compound the traffic problems created by the predicted increase in VMT.  Eliminating transit would create gridlock in many areas as we simply cannot funnel as many people through a road segment in low occupancy cars as we can in a bus, train, or tram.  As Glen Bolen of Otak has said – ‘You can’t fix geometry, it’s fixed’.