The Environmental and Resource Dimensions of Automated Transport: A Nexus for Enabling Vehicle Automation to Support Sustainable Urban Mobility

Abstract

Automation carries paradigm-shifting potential for urban transport and has critical sustainability dimensions for the future of our cities. This article examines the diverse environmental and energy-related dimensions of automated mobility at the city level by reviewing an emerging and increasingly diversified volume of literature for road, rail, water, and air passenger transport. The multimodal nature of this investigation provides the opportunity for a novel contribution that adds value to the literature in four distinctive ways. It reviews from a sustainability angle the state of the art underpinning the transition to a paradigm of automated mobility, identifies current knowledge gaps highlighting the scarcity of non-technicalresearch outside the autonomous car's realm, articulates future directions for research and policy development, and proposes a conceptual model that contextualizes the automation-connectivity-electrification-sharing-multimodality nexus as the only way forward for vehicle automation to reach its pro-environmental and resource-saving potential.

Premises for the Future Deployment of Automated and Connected Transport in Romania Considering Citizens’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Automated Vehicles

“…Assumption 3: Romanian citizens have limited AV knowledge. There were some differences in the survey responses regarding AV-related knowledge, depending on the age of the participant: older participants who were older than 60 years of age demonstrated lower knowledge of AVs, confirming the assumption; nevertheless, younger people (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39) have better knowledge, presumably due to their digital abilities, confirming the literature review results in [41,42,44,45].…”

“…After the release of the restrictions imposed before 1990, the majority of the large cities experienced two types of rapid but uncontrolled spatial development: (i) intensive spatial development through densification within cities and (ii) extensive spatial development in suburban areas (periphery) and peri-urban settlements (cities or small towns), with core cities being spatially and functionally stronger and connected into larger territories and accessed via daily commuting-Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) [3]. The extensive spatial growth has been triggered by new urban-rural social migration, and, in most cases, has partially followed the dysfunctional patterns of car-dependent urban sprawl (low density, low functional mix, underdeveloped public facilities, undersized road infrastructure) [3,[24][25][26][27] because (i) the lengthy process of replacing the post-socialist institutional and urban planning frameworks (previously designed for centralised planning) with a new one that is more appropriate for managing new types of urban development and that is mainly based on medium-and small-scale private initiatives within a market economy and (ii) institutional and administrative weakness [15,26,28]. New built-up areas have been developed as a result of land opportunities and road accessibility, many of which lack or have poor accessibility to public transport [3,29].…”

“…The metropolisation patterns of most cities and the related unsustainable car-oriented travel behaviour has led to a wide range of social, spatial, economic, and environmental externalities: high levels of traffic, congestion, time loss, economic loss, high rates of injuries or road fatalities, the degradation of public spaces, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions, which have affected both the accessibility and the liveability of large cities while also contributing to global warming and climate change [3,26,28].…”

“…Given the reluctance to use shared vehicles [14], public transport could lose more of its attractiveness and modal share [33]. Commuting by car could increase in volume and length due to people's greater acceptance of travelling longer distances if they can have a double use for the travel time so that they can complete other activities [26,28,33].…”

A Path towards Sustainable Vehicle Automation: Willingness to Engage in Level 3 Automated Driving

“…However, it also raises important research questions about human factors regarding the acceptability of that technology, sustainability, driver trust, intentions of use, ease of use, and even optimisation of the human-machine interface [9][10][11]. Despite such concerns, it is generally accepted that the social benefits of automated vehicles will outweigh likely disadvantages as part of a sustainable transport system [12].…”