Through a review of long-range transportation plans and interviews with planners, this article examines how large metropolitan planning organizations are preparing for autonomous vehicles. In just a few years, the prospect of commercially available self-driving cars and trucks has gone from a futurist fantasy to a likely near-term reality. However, uncertainties about the new technology and its relationship to daily investment decisions have kept mention of self-driving cars out of nearly all long-range transportation plans.

Key findings

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New investments in suburban rail or highway expansion will tend to perform less well when considering the range of impacts from driverless cars than when not considering them.

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Most modeling scenarios from the three regions have produced somewhat similar predictions, with 5 to 20 percent increases in regional VMT and associated decreases in non motorized modes and public transportation.

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The only scenario that predicts lower VMT includes a per-mile vehicle charge of $1.65

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