Environmental Impacts of Automated Vehicles

With continued development and intensification of cities, the challenges of increased car usage, traffic congestion, air pollution and energy consumption as well as the availability of land for roads become more pressing. A future Israel that is both sustainable and livable will need to reduce reliance on cars and work towards a car-lite future. In this project, we model and evaluate future automated services performance in terms of traffic congestion, fuel consumption, and emissions under various scenarios. We are developing and delivering the following: (1) We design and optimize a set of AV solutions for 2040 through SimMobility simulation platform and in close collaboration with Ministry of Environmental Protection. Such solutions include AV’s as a substitute for private vehicular travel, as well as a first and last-mile solution to/from train stations, along with different pooling schemes, parking, service restrictions and pricing schemes. (2) We evaluate and compare the AV solutions in applications to real city, Tel-Aviv, under predefined automation de-carbonization policies and deliver a summary of interactions and impacts to consider when introducing specific city-wide AV systems.