Evaluating the Impact of Automated Vehicles on Residential Location Distribution using Activity-based Accessibility: A Case Study of Japanese Regional Areas

TL;DR

This study models how automated vehicles could influence residential location choices in Japanese regional areas by 2040, showing potential urban expansion and policy effects on residential distribution.

Contribution

It introduces a residential location choice model incorporating activity-based accessibility changes due to AVs, specifically applied to Japanese regional contexts, with scenario analysis for 2040.

Findings

Urban expansion potential with increased median distances to attraction areas

Subsidizing land prices can mitigate residential sprawl caused by AVs

AV scenarios lead to 7.2% and 41.6% increases in median distances

Abstract

Automated Vehicles (AVs) are expected to disrupt the transport sector in the future. Extensive research efforts have been dedicated to studying its potential implications. However, the existing literature is yet limited regarding the long-term impacts. To fill this gap, this paper estimates and validates a residential location choice model to evaluate the impacts of AVs on residential location distributions in a context of Japanese regional area. Activity-based accessibility is used to reflect the changes from AVs in transport costs. The year 2040 is set as the backdrop for the analyses, where the effects of the decreased population are reflected in the scenario settings, along with some other variables to accommodate the uncertainties in the characteristics of AVs. The simulation results confirm the potential of urban expansion. The results demonstrate that, compared to Base Scenario, the median distances between the residences and the closest Dwelling Attraction Areas expand by 7.2% and 41.6% for two AV scenarios, respectively. Two hypothetical policy mandates are then applied to alleviate the problem. The results suggest that providing a 20% subsidy to the land price is effective for the scenario with relatively conservative AV settings, as the median distance indicator can be resumed to the level of Base Scenario.