The UC Davis Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program has developed a cost model of the choices travelers make between a range of vehicle trips, including with their own vehicles, use of new mobility services (e.g. Uber), and the use of pooled trips of that type. This model considers the cost impacts of combustion, electric, or automated/electric vehicles in the near and longer term. This work reveals wide variations in trip cost under different assumptions. However, there are also many non-monetary (“hedonic”) factors, such as travel time, parking time/inconvenience, willingness to drive or be in an automated vehicle, willingness to travel with strangers, and other factors. These factors have major policy implications since they will affect travel choices and thus the net effect on societal impacts such as congestion, interaction with transit, and pollution. This project will undertake survey work to explore such factors with the public, and how they perceive a range of issues associated with making various types of trips. The results should enable a deeper understanding of the likelihood that individuals will use shared mobility and/or autonomous vehicle services in the future, as opposed to using their own vehicles, even including the decision whether to continuing owning their own vehicle.
