How will the introduction of automated vehicles impact private car ownership?

Kurzfassung

Private car ownership provides the foundation for the current dominance of the car in the modal split of many cities, regions and countries. A private car is seen by many as the fastest, safest and most comfortable means of transportation. Hence private car ownership is further increasing in both the emerging markets of development countries as well as in the saturated markets of industrial nations. Yet, the increasing number of cars leads to negative consequences such as more congestion, pollution, and inefficient land use so that many cities all around the world have introduced different measures to reduce the use and ownership of private cars. This paper explores whether the introduction of automated vehicles can help to reduce private car ownership through new mobility services or whether it will make the ownership of a private car even more attractive and thus further increase sales. The data basis is comprised of several focus group discussions with residents from different spatial regions of Berlin and its surroundings and different sociodemographic backgrounds. Our results indicate that the automation of vehicles could make the possession of a private car even more attractive to current car owners and also contribute to the emergence of completely new groups of car owners. However, our findings also point out how the particular features of both automated private cars as well as new mobility services enabled through automated vehicles could lead to a reduction in private car ownership. In fact, whether the introduction of automated vehicles and new mobility services leads to an increase or a reduction in private car ownership seems to depend heavily on the concrete implementation. This suggests that there is plenty of room for car manufacturers, ride-sharing operators, and policy-makers at local, regional and state-level to shape the implementation into a direction beneficial for society.