Estimating Future Travel Costs for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs)

Existing costs show that on average, Americans are spending approximately $.54 per mile for driving individually-owned (IO) vehicles. This value is based on factors such as fuel, maintenance, insurance, registration, parking, tolls and depreciation. Many of these factors will be affected with the arrival of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and more specifically, Shared Autonomous Vehicle (SAV) systems. For the purposes of realizing the advantages of future AVs and SAVs, a better understanding of future costs of travel is necessary. The goal of this research work is to estimate future travel costs using each of the AV and SAV Systems. These cost estimates would be crucial in evaluating the impacts of these technologies on future mobility and society. For this purpose, extensive literature reviews were conducted and a model was developed to analyze and evaluate the future travel costs using each of the AV and SAV systems. Results of this work indicate that future travel costs using SAV systems are likely to be substantially lower than those of using AV systems. This may lead to a disruption that can ultimately influence consumers to switch from owning a vehicle to on-demand mobility services.