Full Description
Vehicle automation is on dual paths of entrenching private car ownership while simultaneously enhancing transportation services that would make driving unnecessary. Future impacts are uncertain.
The End of Driving challenges the assumption that self-driving cars will by themselves reduce traffic congestion and crashes. Evolving vehicle automation will create safer, more convenient vehicles, yet continued reliance on private ownership will increase traffic volume. The authors explore psychological factors sustaining private vehicle use and the challenges of mixed-driver roads, examining why shared robotaxis face behavioral, political, and policy hurdles that will impede mass adoption, despite substantial public benefit.
This updated edition examines real-world deployments through 2025 and introduces concepts such as zero car-ownership communities, robotaxi pickup and drop-off orchestration, and urban spaces redesigned around greater mode choices for physical access rather than parking. The book compares privately owned automated cars against shared, on-demand driverless vehicles, using new data to show which model best serves cities.
Rather than predicting timelines, the authors use backcasting to map paths toward preferred mobility futures. They propose micro-subsidies, flexible transit integration, and regulatory frameworks to guide automation toward all three pillars of sustainability: ecology, economy, and equity. Shared, automated mobility is achievable and desirable but requires the deliberate actions described in this book.
Contents
Foreword by Dr. Susan Shaheen
Preface
Introduction
1. Language for automated driving
2. Hype, disillusionment, and reset
3. The broad context of change
4. Behavioral economics, automated driving, and vehicle ownership
5. A challenging transition: two competing markets
6. The road ahead wherever private ownership thrives
7. Barriers to shared use of vehicles
8. Matters of scale
9. Surviving mixed traffic
10. Backcasting: Steps to achieve desired futures
11. Microtransit rising
12. Nudging ride-buying with microsubsidies
13. Automated driving and transit-oriented development
14. The path to zero-car-ownership communities
15. Conclusion and recommendations
Glossary
References
