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News, Analysis & Perspective on Autonomous Vehicles

Will Autonomous Vehicles Create a New Golden Age for Public Transit?

by Richard R. Forberg  (rrforberg@gmail.com)

January 30, 2019 

Alarm bells have been ringing about the potential negative impacts on cities from the coming use of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). These worries are justified, but only if metro governments fail to plan wisely.

What is overlooked is the potential upside if local authorities choose to plan how their cities will not only accommodate AVs, but also exploit them and other new technologies to solve two long-standing urban problems: 1.) worsening roadway congestion;  2.) the poor service and underutilization of their public transit systems.

AVs, of various sizes, put to use as transit vehicles in large numbers, could serve up to 35% of daily commuters in mid-sized metro areas of 1 to 3 million people. Perhaps 150,000 to 450,000 daily commuters could be riding on transit in such cities by 2030, mostly via express routes on highways. This would lower both highway and surface road congestion noticeably, even at 10 to 12 riders per “Transit AV” on average during peak hours on the busier roads. The smallest AVs (e.g., 6 to 12 seats) would provide the much-needed “Front Door” pick-up and drop-off services, mainly in residential areas, office parks and other “back streets,” bringing riders to and from a nearby transit station. This added convenience is key to growing transit ridership.

In many metro areas, AVs alone can “do transit” better than either Light Rail or traditional bus networks. Since AVs will be battery electric vehicles connected to smart control systems, they will also lower capital and operating costs, to 20% or less, of the costs per passenger mile of transit today. This allows the low fares charged for transit to cover both operations and depreciation costs, making public transit self-sustaining, if run efficiently and focused on neighborhoods that will use it regularly.

Current bus drivers will find there are many other types of jobs needed in these new transit systems if ridership grows, such as “station manager”. Growth improves these transit systems: more riders means more vehicles providing more routes, yielding faster ways to get riders to their diverse destinations. That growth can also be further encouraged, if needed, by higher minimums for HOV compliance in the fastest lanes, and with tolls for non-compliance electronically enforced. That becomes politically acceptable only when there are excellent alternatives to today’s low occupancy commuting, including both transit and a diversity of private carpool services.

Whether all this happens depends mostly on metro politics, but also on federal and state policies, since it necessitates a re-think of long-held beliefs, such as, “highway congestion is unsolvable” and “transit must be on rails.”  

Current transit policies and practices can work well in some situations, such as the high-density corridors of the largest metros, but not so well in mid-sized metros. Using the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) strategy, encouraged and subsided by federal law and the US Department of Transportation for years to create high-density corridors—where there are none—takes 15 to 30 years or longer, while ignoring the vast majority of people in mid-sized metro areas, who live in mid-density neighborhoods.

Those mid-density neighborhoods include single family homes and town houses, but also many 2 to 6 story, lower-to-middle income apartment and condo complexes. They are often on side streets, near the freeways where the land is cheaper. Only AVs can deliver a high-frequency, low-cost, fast transit service to these areas.

Which of the many companies now investing heavily in AV technology and/or fleet operations will focus seriously on the combination of features needed to spawn a golden age in public transit is not yet clear.  The large auto companies, which are still dependent on vehicle sales volumes, may not be so interested.

The big-name ride-hailing innovators with their exploding growth created via their mobile apps are perhaps the better candidates to make this happen, but only if they diversify their AV strategy, putting less focus on single-party trips via robo-taxis. This leaves open opportunities for the more innovative, emerging AV fleet operators to enter the public transit field and/or deliver much better ways of carpooling.

Yet, no contenders will succeed fully in this opportunity unless they can create “win-win” deals with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and gain support for the new ground infrastructures needed by this disruptive long-term mobility strategy within the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) of the cities they seek to serve. 

Mr. Forberg is a co-founder of Autonomous Insights, LLC, an emerging U.S. based consultancy (www.autono-insights.com) focused on cost-effective public transit and roadway congestion reduction strategies. He is a former telecom and Internet industry executive with 35 years experience in product and services management, new market development, and business planning. He now lives in Nashville TN with his wife Lisa, where he is also a citizen activist for innovative solutions that will yield improved human mobility.

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