by Benjamin Clark -

AV buses coming to Oslo–can be hailed by smartphone app

Oslo, Norway will get AV bus transportation in 2018 (article can be found here in Norwegian). The bus system they are testing out will provide on-demand point A to B transportation in combination with fixed route services. The on-demand service will be linked to a smartphone application that will allow riders to hail the bus—similar to what we see with Lyft and Uber. The buses will carry 15 riders and can be essentially ‘driven’ by the passengers within a designated service area. The test will allow Oslo to determine if AV buses can help the city deal with a growing population without increasing the number of cars.

 

 

by Benjamin Clark -

AV developers planning for a future without major roadway improvements

A key issue facing cities, states, and the federal government as they ponder the AV future, how do we properly prepare the roadways for AVs? Some suggest putting sensors on roads, but in an already fiscally constrained environment the idea of spending more on our roads for technology that is not yet fully functional is a non-starter.

The major players in AVs today are, not surprisingly, fully aware of this reality. This is why these companies are developing technology to adapt to current roads and current driving conditions rather than pushing for new technology. “Uber, Waymo, Ford, General Motors and others, all of whom have targeted around 2021 for the unveiling of fleets of ride-hailing focused self-driving cars, are developing vehicles with sensors and mapping systems that won’t rely on roadway upgrades.”

And while building smarter roads would make for safer and easier AV travel, it is clear that companies like Ford understand that “you can’t count on that being there, which is why our technical approach is to build the capability completely on the vehicle,” says VP of research and advanced engineering Ken Washington.

The forthcoming Urbanism Next white paper will cover a range local government secondary effects that we expect to see arising from the introduction of AVs. Look for it in the coming weeks.

 

by Benjamin Clark -

Two tech giants ink deals with two car rental giants

In the last few days, it has become apparent that the owners of the largest fleets of private vehicles, car rental companies, are finding ways into the AV conversation as well. Alphabet (parent of Google and Waymo) recently signed a deal with Avis to manage their fleet.  While Apple signed a deal with Hertz to lease vehicles from the car rental giant to test their AV technology.

The types of ways in which these partnerships may develop are starting become clear, as Avis owns the car sharing company Zipcar. Waymo executives have indicated that this was one the selling points for the Avis partnership. Zipcar already has a distributed fleet of vehicles around many urban areas that are available on demand for people needing a short-term car rental. While neither Apple nor Waymo appear to have signed any exclusive deals here, they are pointing toward, at least in the Waymo-Avis deal, a shared ownership model for cars and AVs in the future.

by Marc Schlossberg -

To Mix or Not Mix, That is the Question

The deployment and impacts of autonomous vehicles, the sharing economy, and e-commerce are going to impact different parts of metro areas differently.  How street space is planned in the suburbs will be much different than in denser, mixed use urban areas or nodes.  For the walkable or bikeable places of our cities – which are increasingly in demand – it is not clear how to make a workable mix of autonomous vehicles and walking/biking human beings.  One solution is to completely segregate the modes since any human can stop a vehicle simply by being present in front of it.  Another approach is to criminalize that behavior (vehicles will have cameras and spatial location and knowledge of traffic light status, after all, making it easy to take a picture and send an automated ticket), and another option is to simply eliminate the car from urban spaces and prioritize walking, biking, and transit since they are the most efficient ways of getting about (and healthy, less polluting, and happy-making).  This article from the Guardian nicely frames these issues.  Which alternate future do you want?

by Benjamin Clark -

US Federal Government taking more steps toward more robust AV policy

Writing software to navigate the driving characteristics, challenges, and rules of cities around the world is clearly a challenge. Some in the automobile industry are nudging the US Department of Transportation to develop more specific policies for AVs. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has indicated that a new set of voluntary guidelines will be issued by the end of 2018—though they will remain voluntary.

Ford Motor VP Ken Washington is asking the US federal government to do more:
“We must have concrete federal guidelines and additional data to inform how we will bring this technology to market in a way that will cause more good than harm.”
Much of current the current talk of AV policy has surrounded the technical aspects of AVs—with very little attention paid to the secondary effects of AVs. Faculty, staff, and students with Urbanism Next are taking this gap in attention seriously. We will be releasing one of the first looks at secondary effects on local government budgets (expenditures and revenues) later this month.

Engineering scholars recognize the complexity of the urban environments as one of their key challenges moving forward as well. For example, they recognize, as compared to highways, AVs in cities require “progress in both transport technology and infrastructure to effectively deal with the increase in operating velocity of autonomous systems as well as the complexity of urban environments…. Different cities have different driving characteristics and traffic rules, and therefore what works in one environment, may need a lot of refinements if it’s applied to a different environment.”

AVs are going to be a global phenomenon, thus adaptation to AVs will take on many forms and we are now at the moment in time where we have the potential to have the most impact on how cities adapt or shape their future with AVs.

by Benjamin Clark -

Will AVs bring doom & gloom or a big boom to the economy?

Intel and Strategy Analytics researchers are claiming the impact of AVs will yield a $7 TRILLION boost to the economy. They feel that the effect of AVS “could add as much as $2 trillion to the US economy alone by 2050,” according to a recent article in Wired magazine. Much of the money will, expectantly, go to manufacturers of the vehicles but “mobility-as-a-service will supplant the value of vehicle sales as core sources of shareholder value creation” in the long-run the report says.

How do they suggest you get a share of the benefits?

  1. Work in data (“Storing, organizing, and analyzing that data will be a big job”);
  2. Work in IT (“someone needs to tend to these data architecture beasts—not crunching the numbers themselves, but making sure the systems are humming along as they should”);
  3. AV mechanic (“Robocars won’t need you, but they’ll still need mechanics”)
  4. Something we don’t yet understand (“No one has yet predicted how many jobs the autonomous future will create, and that’s partly because the future is so messy”)
by Benjamin Clark -

Looking Beyond the Personal AV to See a Larger Potential for Citywide Connectivity

The shape of our current urban spaces and transportation networks are shaping up to strongly influence the approach cities and countries are taking toward AVs. The American influence on AV developing, not surprisingly, is pushing somewhat toward a personalized vision of AVs. A number of European countries and cities are taking a more public transit-oriented approach to AV development.

A recent article in the New York Times dives into these differing approaches.

“The coming age of driverless cars has typically centered on Silicon Valley highfliers like Tesla, Uber and Google, which have showcased their autonomous driving technology in luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles costing $100,000 or more. But across Europe, fledgling driverless projects like those by Deutsche Bahn are instead focused on utilitarian self-driving vehicles for mass transit that barely exceed walking pace.

The article further points out that AVs in combination with existing public transit systems have the potential to greatly “reduces the complexity required to make the machines navigate across an entire city.”

AV technology has the potential to extend beyond vehicles on roadways, as a number of Dutch cities are realizing. A number of leaders in that country see a future with “driverless boats” that can ferry passengers around the city and potentially “autonomous boats will be able to automatically dock with each other, creating on-demand bridges and walkways whenever necessary.”

by Nico Larco -

AV Micro-Transit Could help TOD and First/Last Mile

One of the larger concerns with the rise of AVs and ride-sourcing services has been its potential drain on transit riders that could  – even with only a draw on few riders –  make transit itself economically infeasible.  This article from the New York Times discusses the development of AV micro-transit 12 person shuttles that might be just the boon transit has been looking for.

These shuttles are being developed in Europe and focus on slow (20 mph), limited range travel.  While these shuttles would never be able to provide desirable alternatives for cross town trips, they are ideal for getting people to and from transit.  Due to the shared destination/origin point of transit, this type of shared mobility on demand would greatly extend the catchment and draw of main line bus and rail transit.  The limited areas it would travel to and from (around a transit stop) make the technology much easier to attain in the near term.  This provides a hopeful version of the future where AVs might actually help transit oriented development instead of destroying it.

by Nico Larco -

More Retails Closings Projected This Year Than At Recession Peak

The bad news for retail continues with Credit Suisse’s report that 8,640 stores are projected to close this year.  That far eclipses the 6,163 stores that closed at the peak of the recession.  The culprit seems to be a combination of e-commerce as well as the over building and expansion of retail.

As similarly reported in previous posts, they are also projecting that a quarter of all malls in the country will close in the next five years with low-end malls being hardest hit.  This will not only affect local economies, but it will also leave communities with the task of figuring out what to do with large, vacant and deteriorating buildings in their midsts.  The effects of this will unavoidably expand well beyond any mall’s property lines.

Credit Suisse is also projecting e-commerce clothing sales to more than double to 35% of that market by 2030 compared to the current 17%.  This sector in particular will be interesting to watch as that shift could mean the closing of stores, but potentially also a shifting towards more omnichannel approaches and smaller ‘guideshops’ replacing current retail models (see Urbanism Next Research Papers for more on this).

STORE CLOSINGS – Full Year Estimates
Source: Credit Suisse