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Road Vehicle Automation 4 pp 201–221Cite as

Understanding the Effects of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Form

Part of the Lecture Notes in Mobility book series (LNMOB)

Abstract

Predicting the future impact of Autonomous Vehicles on infrastructure and urban form is critical for decision makers at all levels of government. The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) is a disruptive technology in transportation and its impact could resonate through all levels of society and government. The impact on infrastructure spending and decisions is one of the greatest reasons for understanding the potential outcomes of the technology but, in addition, the potential of the technology to play a positive role for the less advantaged members of society is large if there is proper direction of the technology as it is implemented. Auto makers view the technology as something which offers their customers a higher level of convenience and safety and, as such, they are in heated competition to develop this technology. In order to understand and speculate on the systemic urban impact of this nascent transportation technology, a comprehensive methodology is required. This paper will present, substantiate and describe such methodology. We base our proposal on existing future envisioning techniques for business decision making, precedent discussions on the impact of AVs, and on visionary traditions of architectural and urban design. We do not intend a precise method for future prediction, but rather a useful and robust tool that can be used by decision makers to take better informed decision on maximizing benefits and mitigating problems of new transportation technologies with regard to the quality of urban environments.

Keywords

  • Autonomous vehicles
  • Urban planning
  • Methodology
  • Future visioning
  • Shell approach

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-60934-8_17
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Sara Costa Maia & Annalisa Meyboom

Authors
  1. Sara Costa Maia
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  2. Annalisa Meyboom
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annalisa Meyboom .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Future Technologies and Europe, VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Gereon Meyer

  2. Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA

    Sven Beiker

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Maia, S.C., Meyboom, A. (2018). Understanding the Effects of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Form. In: Meyer, G., Beiker, S. (eds) Road Vehicle Automation 4. Lecture Notes in Mobility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60934-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60934-8_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60933-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60934-8

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