Connected

By Arthur C. Nelson, PhD, FAICP, FAcSS

Connected vehicles are not autonomous vehicles — but the technologies are in the same family. And CVs, like AVs, have plenty of planning implications. First, let's take a look at what it means to call something a connected vehicle. There are two types of connectivity: vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure.

Vehicle to vehicle

Vehicle-to-vehicle technology holds a lot of promise in the area of safety, since more than 90 percent of crashes involve human error. V2V technology improves driver performance through a number of enhancements:

• Intersection movement assist
• Adaptive cruise control
• Left-turn assist
• Parking assistance
• Autonomous emergency braking
• Forward collision warning
• Rear cross-traffic alert
• Blind spot warning and lane change warning
• Do not pass warning
• Night vision and pedestrian warning
• Street sign recognition

Some of this technology is already here, and being used by drivers today. The rest is just around the corner.

Low cost could drive a rapid rollout. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates that V2V technology may add about $350 per vehicle in 2020 and that it would be required of all new vehicles at about that time. Thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in medical and damage expenses could be saved each year through universal use of V2V technology. Planners need to know about V2V advances, but there isn't anything they need to do about them technically.

In March, Washington, D.C., connected its traffic signal network to V2I technology. Audi's "time to green" feature shows drivers how soon a red light will turn green. Photo courtesy Audi.

Vehicle to infrastructure

Next up the food chain is vehicle-to-infrastructure V2I connectivity. Essentially, this includes communication with public infrastructure elements such as traffic signals and guard rails. Either the driver or the vehicle itself can respond before an incident occurs. Examples include:

• Red light violation warning
• Curve speed warning
• Stop sign gap assist
• Spot weather impact warning
• Reduced speed/work zone warning
• Pedestrian in signalized crosswalk warning

While V2I involves public investment, the technology can be embedded in existing roadway infrastructure at a modest cost, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

The American Association of State Highway Officials concurs. In its 2015 report, National Connected Vehicle Field Infrastructure Footprint Analysis, AASHTO proposes that 20 percent of intersections with the highest crash volumes could be V2I ready by 2025 at a cost of $3 billion. By 2040, 80 percent of those intersections could be V2I equipped, for about $10 billion. Such systems would need to be replaced frequently, every five to 10 years, but their benefits could top $200 billion per year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Who pays?

V2V costs are incurred by the buyers of V2Vequipped vehicles so they are private costs, and at about $350 per vehicle the expense is small. V2I costs would be public, with infrastructure installed and maintained by highway agencies.

Considering that the annual highway construction and maintenance budgets of all units of government in 2015 was about $235 billion, $3 billion in initial costs and 10 to 20 percent of that for annual replacements costs would seem to be easily absorbed by those budgets especially considering the benefits.

But these costs exclude the cost of investing in roads themselves to accommodate connected and autonomous vehicles. By about the 2040s, USDOT anticipates that vehicles can be fully driverless, and some studies indicate that connected and autonomous vehicles may actually increase road demand, as well as require reconstruction of many roads. Moreover, assuming that CAVs work best on roads with- out potholes, roads may need to be maintained at a higher level of repair in the future than at present.

In other words, building and maintaining roads for CAVs may cost more than we spend today. Considering the nearly $1 trillion backlog of deferred highway maintenance, repair, and replacement costs estimated by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the total cost to make 6.5 million lane-miles of roads CAV-ready may be $2 trillion (see below). I believe my estimates are conservative.

The big unknown is how America's surface transportation infrastructure will be paid for in the future. Reliance on the gasoline tax has proven misguided since it is not applied to vehicles that don't use fossil fuels, the amounts levied drop as fuel efficiency rises, and the tax rates are not adjusted for inflation. Federal, state, and local governments rely increasingly on "general purpose" taxes on sales, property, and income to pay for roads.

This scheme is both inefficient and inequitable. It is inefficient because there is very little financial relationship between road use and general purpose taxes paid. Without facing financial consequences of road use directly, users will tend to use more roads, which means more highway financing is required.

It is inequitable because lower income households pay disproportionate shares of their income for general purpose taxes than higher income households, yet they use roads less. In effect, through general purpose taxes used for roads, lower income households subsidize higher income ones.

There are plenty of land-use planning implications of CAVs. Besides those very real, and specific implications, planners play a broader role: They must redouble efforts to assure that CAV-influenced development occurs in accordance with comprehensive plans.

Those plans need to address longer term implications of CAVs on urban form, urban infill and redevelopment, complete streets, natural and resource landscapes, housing needs, and especially transportation financing to achieve efficiency and equity.

APA is already at the forefront of creating dialogue on these and related implications of CAVs, and it's a good thing — because unless planners assert ourselves in the long-term planning debate now, we might just get run over in the race to the future.

Arthur C. Nelson is professor of planning and real estate development at the University of Arizona. He has more than 40 years' experience in planning and development finance.