Automated Vehicles and Automated Driving from a Demand Modeling Perspective

Kurzfassung

In 2013 Willumsen, one of the most renowned researchers in transport modeling, stated, regarding automated vehicles: “We can no longer ignore them, if [the] planning horizon is 10+ years” . But works attempting to anticipate the effects of automated vehicles on potential users’ everyday mobility, and specifically their choice of transport mode, are still rare. However, a glance at the individual driving forces of our daily mobility behavior does allow us to draw some cautious conclusions on potential behavioral changes arising from the introduction of automated vehicles. Applying analogies to the use of known transport modes in transport demand modeling allows for initial quantitative statements about potential impacts on overall transport demand. In the process, demand modeling allows us to distinguish between different geographic contexts and user groups, and to evaluate various scenarios for the use of such systems. The aim of this chapter is to sketch out challenges and initial approaches on how to incorporate automated vehicles among the choices of transport mode when modeling demand in passenger transport. First, we will examine which factors play a central role in the individual processes when weighing up the various transport modes. The following section gives a short introduction into transport demand modeling’s manner of operation. We shall then turn our attention to what behavioral changes may appear in transport modal choice as a result of introducing automated vehicles. We will discuss what properties of the new vehicles, and also of the geographic context and potential users themselves, could be significant in how the vehicles are perceived and received, and what competitive situation between transport modes this will result in. To support this work, we shall introduce the initial results of an online questionnaire on attitudes to automated vehicles and their anticipated use. The concluding section addresses the following questions: What are the challenges when integrating automated vehicles into model-supported transport demand analysis? How do current models and data bases need to be expanded to give an adequate mapping?