Siemens report urges cities to plan now for arrival of autonomous vehicles

The potential for CAV to bring transformative change is huge. The benefits include:

• First and last mile trips that will strengthen public transport;
• Reduction of noise, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions;
• Decrease of number of road fatalities and injuries; annually 1.25 million lives are lost around the world due to road collisions, with some 90 percent of these collisions the result of human error;
• Expanded mobility access to the young, elderly, impaired and marginalized;
• Repurposing of land currently used for parking and roadways into green space, housing, schools, protected cycle lanes, etc.
• Greater efficiencies and safety through the connection and communication of vehicles with city infrastructure

However, without clear and thoughtful policies and regulations the arrival of CAV could result in negative consequences, such as:

• Continuation of effects of climate change if CAV are not regulated to be low or zero-carbon;
• No decrease in vehicle ownership if individuals prefer their own CAV instead of adopting a shared transport system;
• Unused CAV may cause congestion and require unnecessary parking space;
• Increase of vehicle miles traveled if individuals alter their commute from walking, cycling or taking public transport to using CAV.

• The strong city scenario assumes that shared mobility becomes the norm and private car ownership declines, that parking space is unlocked and retrofitted as schools, hospitals, and new housing units and that most vehicles are electric and powered by clean energy grids.
• The business-as-usual scenario provides an outlook of future mobility that is not guided by a coherent vision or effective policies. The assumed revolutions in vehicle automation and electrification do not lift off at scale, and private usage remains the norm, little urban land is unlocked and only a minority of CAV are electric.
• In the CAV-as-a-luxury-good scenario CAV remain an exclusive rarity, private car-ownership is the norm, shared vehicles and shared trips remain a niche concept and public transport usage decreases rapidly over time. Vehicles promote individual trips and still utilize internal combustion engines, causing more CO₂ emissions than ever before.