Are Cities Prepared for Autonomous Vehicles?

10 years ago, cities had a surge of interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs). But the technology wasn’t ready and cities grew disillusioned.

Today, we see the reverse. AV technology has matured, yet cities are utterly unprepared—and most are not discussing it at all.

In our paper, Are Cities Prepared for Autonomous Vehicles? Planning for Technological Change by U.S. Local Governments, Yonah Freemark, Annie Hudson and I surveyed 120 U.S. cities in 2019 and found that:

“A clear majority of officials disagreed that their cities were prepared for AVs, had a clear sense of who was responsible for them, or had developed plans or policies related to them.” See image in the comment below

Cities need to move beyond 'wait-and-see' and actively engage in planning for AVs.

Six years on, are cities any more prepared or do our findings still hold? I’d love to hear your thought: which cities are laying out concrete AV policies or meaningfully engaging with the AV industry?

Here is a 6:27-minute audiogram summary.

(Warning: AI-generated. For a precise account, please refer to our paper https://tinyurl.com/yrn3vwt4)