Connected Autonomous Vehicles: Travel Behavior and Energy Use

Autonomous vehicles offer great promise for unprecedented improvements in mobility and safety. However, self-driving vehicles may also significantly alter behavior because they can make driving easier and safer. This may lead connected autonomous vehicles to have large unintended consequences in terms of additional energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as causing decreases in the density of urban areas and may impact congestion. This paper uses consensus estimates from the literature on the cost of driving and the value of travel time to evaluate automation's ability to reduce the costs of travel time. Policy solutions to address the induced driving include charging for miles driven taking into account when and where vehicles are used.