Are Cities Prepared for Autonomous Vehicles?

Abstract

Problem, Research Strategy, and Findings: Local government policies could impact how autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is deployed. This paper examines how municipalities are planning for AVs, identifies local characteristics that are associated with preparation, and describes what impacts bureaucrats expect from the vehicles. We review existing plans of the United States' 25 largest cities and survey transportation and planning officials from 120 cities, representative of all municipalities with populations larger than 100,000. First, we find that few local governments have commenced planning for AVs. Second, cities with larger populations and higher population growth are more likely to be prepared. Third, while local officials are optimistic about the technology and its potential to increase safety while reducing congestion, costs, and pollution, more than a third of respondents worried about AVs increasing vehiclemiles traveled and sprawl while reducing transit ridership and local revenues. Those concerns are associated with greater willingness to implement AV regulations, but there is variation among responses depending on political ideology, per-capita government expenditures, and population density.

Policies for Autonomy: How American Cities Envision Regulating Automated Vehicles

“…Officials' personal feelings about on-theground AV-related measures, and even more so, their expectations about local political support for such policies, are highly associated with the ideology of local residents. This was not our expectation based on previous results [19], but the implementation of AV-related policies seems likely to be filtered through political difference. This may be the product of the fact that staff are selected based on the politics of their respective cities, which, in turn, are founded on resident views.…”

“…We did not receive any responses from elected officials. ** Not reported in this paper; many questions related to preparation reported in [19].…”

“…Second, we examine which city characteristics motivate support for various policies. Based on previous research [19], we expect that officials from higher-population and higher-populationgrowth cities will be more likely to support AV-related policies, but that the ideological makeup of the local population will have limited influence (H2). These hypotheses are founded on the assumption that a higher level of local capacity is linked to greater interest in regulating new technologies-but that views on the specific ways to regulate transportation have little connection to differences in left-right political ideologies of local residents.…”

“…We asked officials in all cities to complete an anonymous online survey (Appendix A) consisting of Likert-scale questions, with associated free-text submission. This paper is a companion piece to our previous work [19], which focused on municipal preparation for AVs, not support for specific policies. We used the same survey, but here analyzed the results of different questions.…”

“…Yet many local governments-with differing levels of local power-have attracted and managed recent AV testing [18]. Local officials are largely optimistic about future AV impacts on their cities, and a large share agree that AVs should be regulated, though most municipalities have yet to begin planning for them [19]. This general positivity comes in spite of concerns from some quarters that uncritically accepting innovations could have adverse consequences, particularly related to the ability to direct behavior through surveillance capitalism.…”