Steering Autonomous Vehicles and Sustainable Cities Toward a Liveable Future

This week, I wrote an article for the New Polis E-Journal about the policies we need to put in place so our transport systems benefit from the opportunities that Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) provide, whilst avoiding the problems they could cause.

Key Takeaways

• AVs are coming, but we do not know how quickly.
• The nightmare scenario is that privately owned AVs make car travel easier and create more congestion in our cities.
• The dream scenario is that we utilise AVs to create better transport systems by supporting connections to public transport, while shared robotaxis reduce private ownership.
• With current policy settings, we are moving towards the nightmare scenario.
• We only need two tools to steer us towards the dream scenario - the transport mode hierarchy and road pricing.
• This hierarchy should be adapted to account for AVs. Shared AVs would rank slightly above human-driven car sharing, whilst privately owned AVs would be positioned above conventional private vehicles.
• For AVs, introducing a road pricing framework before mass deployment would face little resistance.
• Shared AVs should be priced lower than private AVs — but higher than public transport — with discounts for seamless connections to transit.
• Private AVs should remain the most expensive option, to discourage their use and avoid undermining collective mobility.
• This approach would allow us to re-purpose space that we dedicate to cars, to space that we can now dedicate to people, creating more sustainable and liveable cities.

What Next?

Please read the full article and let me know what you think. Has your city thought about how it will shape a world full of AVs?