Preparing Cities for an Automated Future

This report is an examination of parking, curb zones, and government service changes in the context of AVs. Given that there are very few actual AVs on the road, the analysis in this report is an attempt to project what we might see, using the current phenomenon as starting points. The report uses a mix of econometric modeling, cost accounting, and case studies to illustrate these projections. The first section of this report looks at the effects of transportation network companies (TNCs)—Uber and Lyft in particular—on parking revenue in the city of Seattle. The results of the study indicate that TNCs are having a negative impact on parking. In the second section of the report, we look at curb space use and on-street parking occupancy levels. We again find that parking occupancy levels are being impacted by TNCs. And in the last section, I use cost accounting as a foundation for examining how the cost of government services may change over time when AVs replace drivers of government-owned vehicles. The particular case in this section looks at how AVs may change the cost curve for municipal trash collection