Removing up to 9 of every 10 cars from the road is the promise of sharing automated vehicles, according to University of Texas, Austin research from Dan Fagnant and Dr. Kara Kockelman. In the above interview, Fagnant, now an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Utah, discusses what he means by Shared Automated Vehicle (SAV). In their modeling, they found that private investors could achieve a return on investment of 43%, even with a $70,000 base price for the automated vehicle.
Their research paper details their SAV model and discusses the implications of such a service in Austin, Texas. Fagnent and Kockelman looked at real-world streets, modeling things such as the routes, number of vehicles against parameters such wait time and vehicle miles traveled. One conclusion is that the SAV approach significantly reduces the amount of land required to support the automobile, freeing it up for other uses and offering the potential for more livable cities.