Almost there: Examining the travel demand, emissions, and effects associated with a socio-technical transition to automated vehicles in Sweden.

Doctoral thesis, 2024

Global average temperatures have increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. We know with near certainty that this warming and the associated climate change are caused by increased emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), and transportation is a large source of GHG emissions. Automated Vehicles (AVs) are slowly becoming a viable mode of transportation. There remains, however, uncertainty about how their introduction into the transportation system will happen, what effects this introduction could cause on travel distances, GHG emissions, and more broadly on society overall, and how AVs can be governed to avoid negative sustainability impacts and help achieve existing sustainability goals. The papers in this doctoral thesis aim to address these research gaps.

Paper 1 uses a travel demand model to assess the consumer surplus impact of AVs, their costs, and the ensuing effects on Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (VKT) and lifecycle emissions. The results showed that VKT increases can become substantial and that higher income earners in Sweden are more likely to purchase an AV and increase their travel distance than lower income groups.

Paper 2 uses mixed methods to examine the driving and restraining forces and pressures that could influence the introduction of AV technology in the City of Gothenburg. Paper 3 studies the societal consequences of AV technology, and policies to control negative potential consequences and stimulate the positive ones. These papers found that explicit policy planning for AVs is likely needed if the existing transportation goals within the City of Gothenburg are to be met, and that cooperation between different actors and reflexivity will be crucial as new iterations of AV technology are introduced.

Paper 4 uses a backcasting-inspired approach to first envision a future where AVs are fully deployed and sustainability goals are met and then to examine how that future image could be obtained for some selected technology systems and policies. It was found that increased national funding to regions and cities, along with improved cooperation between all levels of government on policies like a kilometre tax, is crucial in this scenario. Measures such as Bus Rapid Transit and Demand-Responsive Transit could benefit from these efforts, especially before AV technology is fully mature. However, successfully implementing these policies will require careful planning and cooperation between municipal, regional, and national governments.

In conclusion, it is clear that although there is little AV-specific policy in Sweden (Paper 2), there are environmental and transport policy goals at all levels of government that are well-suited to guide the introduction of the technology (Papers 3 and 4) so that potential negative impacts can be avoided (Paper 1). Finally, while it is theoretically possible to meet domestic emissions reductions goals without AV technology, the findings in Paper 3 and Paper 4 show that with careful planning AVs can help contribute to the fulfilment of sustainability goals related to a myriad of indicators including safety, accessibility, and supply-chain emissions, as well as domestic emissions reductions.