by Marc Schlossberg -

When Single Occupancy Vehicles Looked Successful

The typical U.S. commute trip fills a multi-seat car with a single human being (25% of capacity) and that car sits idle most of its existence (90% of the time).  This is an inefficient use of our limited roadway capacity, land for storing vehicles, dispersed settlement pattern and provision of services/utilities, use of fossil fuels, etc. But imagine if we look back at the single occupancy vehicle as a golden age of efficiency?

Autonomous Vehicles don’t need drivers, meaning that if we own them personally, many trips by car will be taken with no one inside.  An AV could drop you off at the market and circle the block until you are done.  It could drop you off at work and return home or other remote parking space.  An AV could be summoned to pick up your child at school and take her to soccer practice.  While there is certainly some convenience in any of these scenarios, a good portion of all those trips will have no occupants and thereby taking up limited and valuable space on the street.

This article by Howard Jennings of Mobility Lab discusses three ways to apply the principles of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) to AVs: 1) “policies should always seek to encourage AVs that move more people in fewer vehicles”; 2) “pricing models offered by automotive and tech companies should be structured to make shared AVs, not personal AVs, the model of choice”; and 3) city pricing models should be structured to disincentives the least efficient mode of transportation. including a fee for zero occupancy vehicles.

by Nico Larco -

Urbanism Next Research Papers Series – Re-Imagining Retail

While we have been compiling research and articles on this blog for the last few months, we have also been working on our own research.  Today marks the start of our publishing a series of brief papers on issues related to Urbanism Next.  The intention is to introduce you to some key topics that will be affecting how cities develop as they face ongoing and transformative changes in technology.

The first paper is co-written by Galen Carlson and Nico Larco and is focused on Re-Imagining Retail.  Building on earlier posts about the challenges retail is currently facing, we look at the transformation retail is currently going through and the shift from brick-and-mortar, to e-commerce, to omnichannel approaches.  The paper describes trends and includes data and resources that can help you understand where we are at, where we are heading, and where you can learn more.

Look for additional papers on residential preferences, warehousing, and the effects of urbanism next issues on municipal budgets – coming in the coming weeks.

by Nico Larco -

Autonomous Trucks – And a New Freeway Land Use

Autonous freight is just around the corner as many believe it will be the first transportation sector to shift to autonomous control.  That said, do not expect self-driving trucks to be cruising around cities just yet.  An article from SupplyChain247 looking at the advent of autonomous freight describes the next step like this: “This is likely how driverless trucks will work at its infancy: At the city limit, …[a] computerized truck hands off to a human driver who navigates the city streets to the destination. A human driver will still touch every load.”  Line hauls on the freeway will be autonomous, but this will connect to a transfer station where the an actual driver will climb onboard to make the final delivery, load new cargo, and bring the truck back out to the transfer spot.

Freeways will now need these transfer spots (modified truck stops?) and warehouses may have an even stronger incentive to move out beyond urban development to avoid the cost of the transfer, allowing trucks to come directly into the warehouse.

by Rebecca Lewis -

Sharing (AVs) is caring (for the environment)

Autonomous vehicles have been described as a heaven or hell scenario.  Many of the depictions of the hell scenario center on private ownership of AVs.  A recent report from the University of California Davis and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy provides evidence to back this up.  Looking at three scenarios,  UCD and ITDP shows how congestion and emissions will climb under a Business as Usual or Electrification+Automation (without Sharing) scenario.

itdp

David Robert at Vox provides three lessons from this study:

Lesson one: the carbon work is mostly done by electrification, the urbanist work by ride-sharing

Lesson two: the scenario with the greatest social benefits requires the most policy support

Lesson three: geometry requires sharing

This new research and Roberts’ charge makes it clear:  there is a role for urbanists and policymakers to make the case for sharing.

by Nico Larco -

Ride-Hailing Services are Getting People to Sell Their Cars (some people…)

A recent poll by Reuters/Ipsos (another article here about it) asked people selling their cars (nearly one quarter of Americans during this last year) why they were selling.  Of these people, 9 percent said they were explicitly doing so because they were now using services such as Lyft and Uber as their primary means of transportation.  A similar percentage said they would be selling additional cars and rely on these types of services for transportation within the following 12 months.

While these percentages are small, it could be early evidence of a trend towards less car ownership and truly having mobility as a service take hold.  The ramifications of reduced car ownership and increased use of ride-hailing services are tremendous – large reductions in automobile production, reduction of parking requirements, potential increases in density as the need for parking diminishes, wholesale redevelopment of parking – especially in suburban areas (think of completely redesigning every strip mall in America…).

Recent conversations we have been having with consultants and developers is already pointing in this direction.  Parking use is starting to dip – especially in larger venues as more and more people turn to Lyft and Uber.  Change is coming.

by Nico Larco -

Brick and Mortar Retail Continues to Vanish

To add to the sobering news on brick and mortar retail in our earlier post, new articles point to continued weakness in the retail market and more store closing.  A recent WSJ article lays out what is currently happening and compares it to more historic trends to highlight its magnitude.  As this article is not publicly available, we are going to list a few of the key quotes below:

  • More than 2,880 stores closed from Jan – early April 2017.  That is twice the amount closing last year for the same period
  • If that trend continues, there will be 8,600 store closings this year – much more than closed during the 2008 recession.
  • 10 Large retailers have filed for bankruptcy as of mid April 2017.  This compares with 9 total large retailers in ALL of 2016.
  • Last year, E-Commerce sales increased from 10.5% to 15.5% of all retail.

Retail is experiencing a large transformation – and this will have a strong impact on brick-and-mortar stores – forcing many to close.  This will result in loss of property tax revenue, sales tax revenue, and will force communities to deal with abandoned buildings that bring down values and often increase crime.

by Nico Larco -

Urbanism Next is Hiring! – Please Distribute!

SCI is looking to hire a Program Manager for our Urbanism Next Research Initiative.  This initiative – as you know – is focused on the effects autonomous vehicles, E-commerce and the sharing economy are having and will have on city form, development, and design.

This position will be in charge of managing the initiative which will include organizing research, developing relationships with partners in the private, public and academic sectors, organizing events, grant writing, and leading dissemination and outreach.

We are looking for someone who is a self-starter, smart, a team-player, detail oriented, and comfortable talking to a range of potential partners.  The position will be based in Portland.

If you know anyone who might be interested, please let us know and share the link to apply – https://tinyurl.com/urbnextpm.  A more detailed position description is also copied below.

More information about SCI can be found here: http://sci.uoregon.edu.

Feel free to distribute to your networks!  Thanks!
Best,
-Nico
SCI Co-Director
University of Oregon

 

by Benjamin Clark -

A scramble for AV related attention may be wasting public resources

Not surprisingly there are a lot of states (or at least their leaders) scrambling for the attention that AVs can create. A recent article on CityLab points to some of the challenges of regulating and encouraging AV development, testing, and innovation.

For example, Michigan—a state with a long history in the automobile world—is positioning itself not just as a testing ground for AVs, but also a place where AVs can be developed and built (creating a lot of jobs). While other states that do not have Michigan’s automotive history might just be scrambling to get a little attention by allowing AVs to be tested in their states—perhaps in a way that gives away a lot to the developers by lowering regulatory barriers to testing.

The authors of the article point out that “the winning move for states in the competition for AV pilots is simply not to play” but rather to make a strategic decision about whether or not they want to be active or passive players as the technology develops. The scramble for attention could play well electorally but may be a waste of public resources and create distractions or worse.