Autonomous Vehicles Will Alter Cityscapes

March 05--Imagine acres of parking decks converted to parks. Picture a ride-sharing app that summons a car with no driver. Envision many fewer fatal traffic accidents.

Self-driving dump trucks and tractors are already here, but autonomous vehicles for individuals won't be a common site on our roadways until about 2023, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey released today in Geneva, Switzerland.

"Autonomous Driving -- 10 Ways in Which Autonomous Vehicles Could Reshape Our Lives," raises provocative scenarios of how they will disrupt our current transportation landscape.

Hans-Werner Kaas, head of McKinsey's automotive practice in Detroit, led the study which is continuing and reflects data and interviews from about 30 people from automakers, suppliers and technology companies that are investing large sums in self-driving cars.

"Autonomous vehicles will have a gradual step-by-step adoption," Kaas said in an interview. "First, there will be pay-per-usage models. These vehicles will be alternatives to cars. They will make mobility available in smaller incremental units."

Mining giant Rio Tinto operates a fleet of 53 driver-less dump trucks at an iron ore mine in western Australia. John Deere produces autonomous tractors and lawn mowers.

"These are defined environments where you have defined routes," Kaas said. "You can control interactions with a known number of other vehicles."

The first places we will see smaller autonomous vehicles likely will be in the growing networks of ride-sharing and car-sharing ventures such as Uber, Lyft and ZipCar. McKinsey's research shows that the number of people who are members of such services has quadrupled worldwide to 4 million over the last four years.

Rather than go to pick up a ZipCar or hail an Uber driver through one's smartphone, the vehicle could be dispatched without a driver from a central location.

"Higher automation can enable that, but a truly driverless vehicle that can show up at someone's doorstep is probably a ways off," said John Maddox, assistant director of the University of Michigan's Mobility Transformation Center. "But it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."

The McKinsey report forecasts that companies that insure, repair and service cars and trucks will undergo drastic changes from the mainstreaming of driver-less vehicles. For example, body shops could see a decline in work as driver-less cars gradually reduce the frequency of accidents. But increased complexity and software coding will require much more technical training for service technicians.

"Insurance companies might need to radically shift the risk they cover from human error to technical failures," the report states.

All this change will take the next two decades to unfold. When it does, Kaas said, a significant portion of the 50 minutes an average commuter spends in traffic each day could be used to work, relax and be entertained.

But here's the most provocative change. Major cities won't need as many large parking decks. McKinsey estimates that by 2050 up to 5.7 billion square meters of parking space could be converted to other uses. That is larger than Grand Canyon and Zion national parks combined.

What will become of those surplus parking structures?

"I do not have the ultimate answer," Kaas said. "When you look at some of our large metropolitan areas they will develop more green spaces and parks, but there also will be new commercial uses."

There will still be strong demand for privately owned, human-driven vehicles.

"But we will see augmentation of personal ownership with other transportation choices," Kaas said.

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