Review Article
Potential Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Movement Behavior: A Scoping Review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2020.01.010Get rights and content

Context

This scoping review examines the literature as it relates to autonomous vehicles and impact on movement behavior (i.e., physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep) or mode choice (e.g., public transit), beliefs about movement behavior or mode choice, or impact on environments that may influence movement behavior or mode choice.

Evidence acquisition

A search was conducted in June 2018 and updated in August 2019 of numerous databases (e.g., SPORTDiscuss, PubMed, and Scopus) and hand searching using terms such as autonomous cars and walking. Documents were included if they were databased studies, published in English, and related to the research question. They were then coded by 6 reviewers for characteristics of the document, design, sample, autonomous vehicles, movement behavior, and findings. The coding and analysis were conducted between August 2018 and September 2019.

Evidence synthesis

Of 1,262 possible studies, 192 remained after a title and abstract scan, and 70 were included after a full-article scan. Most of the studies were conducted in Europe (42%) or North America (40%), involved simulation modeling (50%) or cross-sectional (34%) designs, and were published mostly in transportation (83%) journals or reports. Of the 252 findings, 61% related to movement behavior or mode choice. Though the findings were equivocal in some cases, impacts included decreased demand for active transportation, increased demand for autonomous vehicles, increased sitting and sleeping, and reduced walking.

Conclusions

Though no experimental or longitudinal studies have been published to date, the available research suggests that autonomous vehicles will impact aspects of mode choice and the built environment of people residing in much of the developed world, resulting in reduced walking and more sitting.

Section snippets

CONTEXT

Automated vehicle technology is rapidly advancing in sophistication and holds the potential to transform economies, ecologies, and societies in various and yet to be imagined ways, prompting a concentration of interest and scholarly activity from stakeholders from multiple disciplines and sectors. An autonomous vehicle (AV) is one that can detect and navigate its environment with little or no human involvement or guidance. As vehicles increase in their level of automation, they employ more

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

Because the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews does not currently accept registrations for scoping reviews, literature reviews, or mapping reviews, the protocol for this review was not registered formally. However, procedures incorporated recommendations for scoping reviews32,33 and followed the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews.34

An expert librarian who is a member of the research team searched SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, Transport Research International

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

In accordance with PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, Figure 1 presents a flow chart of the search and selection process. The initial search of databases (n=2,730) and manual searches (n=26) resulted in 2,756 potential includes. After removal of duplicates, 1,262 were considered for title and abstract screening. A further 1,070 documents were excluded at that stage. The remaining 192 documents were then subjected to full-text review, which resulted in 70 documents and 252 findings

DISCUSSION

This scoping review summarizes the characteristics of studies examining AVs and MB and describes the potential impact of AVs on MB. For the latter, 3 questions were asked about whether AVs impact MB or mode choice (e.g., public transit), beliefs about MB or mode choice, and impact on environments that may influence MB or mode choice (e.g., parking and green space). Because fully automated vehicles have yet to be introduced on any major scale,3 research on AVs is still in its infancy. Thus, in

CONCLUSIONS

Though no experimental or longitudinal studies have been published to date, the available research suggests that AVs will impact aspects of mode choice and the built environment of people residing in much of the developed world, resulting in reduced walking and more sitting and sleeping. However, impacts on the demand for public transportation and parking are somewhat equivocal. Current projections suggest that fully automated vehicles may account for much of the local travel choices in urban

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

JSC conceived the project, oversaw the design and implementation, contributed to the analysis, and led the writing of the manuscript; YBK coded and reviewed the included studies, performed the analyses, and contributed to writing; CGL coded and reviewed the included studies, performed the analyses, and contributed to writing; CL assisted with coding and provided input on the manuscript; AJM assisted with coding and provided input on the manuscript; APM assisted with coding and provided input on

REFERENCES (65)

  • GHdA Correia et al.

    Solving the user optimum privately owned automated vehicles assignment problem (UO-POAVAP): a model to explore the impacts of self-driving vehicles on urban mobility

    Transp Res B Methodol

    (2016)
  • L Kröger et al.

    Does context matter? A comparative study modelling autonomous vehicle impact on travel behaviour for Germany and the USA

    Transp Res A Policy Pract

    (2019)
  • RA Acheampong et al.

    Capturing the behavioural determinants behind the adoption of autonomous vehicles: conceptual frameworks and measurement models to predict public transport, sharing and ownership trends of self-driving cars

    Transp Res F Traffic Psychol Behav

    (2019)
  • Z Lu et al.

    Data-enabled public preferences inform integration of autonomous vehicles with transit-oriented development in Atlanta

    Cities

    (2017)
  • S Carrese et al.

    A preliminary study of the potential impact of autonomous vehicles on residential location in Rome

    Res Transp Econ

    (2019)
  • J Meyer et al.

    Autonomous vehicles: the next jump in accessibilities?

    Res Transp Econ

    (2017)
  • W Gruel et al.

    Assessing the long-term effects of autonomous vehicles: a speculative approach

    Transp Res Procedia

    (2016)
  • S Pettigrew

    Why public health should embrace the autonomous car

    Aust N Z J Public Health

    (2017)
  • JC Spence et al.

    Challenging the dual-hinge approach to intervening on sedentary behavior

    Am J Prev Med

    (2017)
  • C Xiao et al.

    Physical activity levels and new public transit: a systematic review and meta-analysis

    Am J Prev Med

    (2019)
  • TS Combs et al.

    Automated vehicles and pedestrian safety: exploring the promise and limits of pedestrian detection

    Am J Prev Med

    (2019)
  • SAE International. Taxonomy and definitions for terms related to driving automation systems for on-road motor vehicles....
  • T Litman

    Autonomous vehicle implementation predictions: implications for transport planning

    (Published 2020)
  • D Milakis et al.

    Development and transport implications of automated vehicles in the Netherlands: scenarios for 2030 and 2050

    Eur J Transp Infrastruct Res

    (2017)
  • TB Lee

    How startups are building driverless cars without Google's billions: driverless shuttles may be the first step toward fully self-driving cars

    arsTechnica

    (Published 2018)
  • I Boudway

    Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving taxi service, takes the slow lane to customer acquisition

    (Published 2019)
  • DJ Fagnant et al.

    Dynamic ride-sharing and fleet sizing for a system of shared autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas

    Transportation

    (2018)
  • J Fleetwood

    Public health, ethics, and autonomous vehicles

    Am J Public Health

    (2017)
  • R Hoogendoorn et al.

    Automated driving, traffic flow efficiency and human factors: literature review

    Transp Res Rec

    (2014)
  • MW Levin et al.

    Effects of autonomous vehicle ownership on trip, mode, and route choice

    Transp Res Rec

    (2015)
  • JM Anderson et al.

    Autonomous Vehicle Technology: A Guide for Policymakers

    (2016)
  • A Harrison et al.

    Consequences of driving reduction or cessation for older adults

    Transp Res Rec

    (2003)
  • Cited by (27)

    • Planning for active transport in driverless cities: A conceptual framework and research agenda

      2022, Journal of Transport and Health
      Citation Excerpt :

      The literature suggests that currently there is an increasing trend for active transport use (Davidson and Spinoulas, 2016). However, in driverless cities, current research suggests that active transport use is likely to reduce (Almlöf et al., 2020; Spence et al., 2020). A review of simulation results shows that with AVs, public transport, walking and cycling may decline by up to 75%, 56% and 45% respectively across the world (Soteropoulos et al., 2019).

    • Impacts of the introduction of autonomous taxi on travel behaviors of the experienced user: Evidence from a one-year paid taxi service in Guangzhou, China

      2021, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies
      Citation Excerpt :

      The introduction of autonomous taxis is expected to substantially reduce the participation in public transport. The AVs’ impact on public transport has been less clear as it depends on whether the AVs are shared or privately owned (Spence et al., 2020). In this study, we observed that approximately 45% of the experienced users were attracted from the other travel modes except for traditional taxi/ride-hailing, and the passengers belonging to the “Single modal travelers attracted from transit” and “Multimodal travelers attracted from transit” segments had a share of one-third in the whole sample.

    • Are multimodal travellers going to abandon sustainable travel for L3 automated vehicles?

      2021, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
      Citation Excerpt :

      Meanwhile, automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to change personal mobility in the near future. AVs have been predicted to increase the attractiveness of car travel, because they make it possible for drivers to disengage from driving, increasing travel comfort and enabling other activities while travelling (Milakis et al., 2017; Soteropoulos et al., 2019; Spence et al., 2020). This could potentially decrease the use of public transport and active travel (walking and cycling).

    • Impacts of light rail transit development on neighborhood health: A scoping review through a social determinants of health lens: Light rail transit development and the social determinants of health

      2021, Journal of Transport and Health
      Citation Excerpt :

      Scoping reviews are most commonly employed in health research and have often been used to capture approaches to and uptake of SDOH across settings and disciplines (Doobay-Persaud et al., 2019; Kansal et al., 2020; Lucyk and McLaren, 2017; Pedrana et al., 2016; Pham et al., 2014; Plamondon et al., 2020). In the transportation literature, scoping reviews appear largely limited to studies on emerging technologies or active transportation (Bourne et al., 2020; Brown et al., 2017a, 2017b; Furlan et al., 2020; Spence et al., 2020; Waheed et al., 2018). Here, the methodology was justified in part for its ability to address nascent research areas or study health outcomes, often in the context of public policy or decision-making tools.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text