Discussing the “positive utilities” of autonomous vehicles: will travellers really use their time productively?

ABSTRACT

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expected to reshape travel behaviour and demand in part by enabling productive uses of travel time—a primary component of the “positive utility of travel” concept—thus reducing subjective values of travel time savings (VOT). Many studies from industry and academia have assumed significant increases in travel time use and reductions in VOT for AVs. In this position paper, I argue that AVs’ VOT impacts may be more modest than anticipated and derive from a different source. Vehicle designs and operations may limit activity engagement during travel, with AV users feeling more like car passengers than train riders. Furthermore, shared AVs may attenuate travel time use benefits, and productivity gains could be limited to long-distance trips. Although AV riders will likely have greater activity participation during travel, many in-vehicle activities today may be more about coping with commuting burdens than productively using travel time. Instead, VOT reductions may be more likely to arise from a different “positive utility”—subjective well-being improvements through reduced stresses of driving or the ability to relax and mentally transition. Given high uncertainty, further empirical research on the experiential, time use, and VOT impacts of AVs is needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Autonomous vehicles
• value of time
• travel-based multitasking
• subjective well-being
• positive utility of travel

Acknowledgement

This paper was inspired and informed by discussions on autonomous vehicles and future mobility at the Transportation and Communities Summit (Portland, OR), the International Conference on Travel Survey Methods (Estérel, QC), and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Annual Conference (Denver, CO) in fall 2017, and the Urbanism Next Conference (Portland, OR) in spring 2018. The comments and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers significantly improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Patrick A. Singleton http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9319-2333