The Environmental Impact of Autonomous Vehicles Depends on Adoption Patterns
Abstract
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to transform our transportation system.The forces that will influence the environmental impacts of large-scale AV adoption are identified to help determine necessary future research directions.It is too early to determine which of these forces will dominate the system and dictate whether AV adoption will result in net reductions or increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.The environmental research community must develop a better understanding of the disruptive forces of AVs to help develop a strategy to reduce transportation emissions.Particular emphasis is needed regarding how AVs will be adopted and used, as these patterns may ultimately dictate the environmental impacts of AVs.Without better integration of engineering, social science, and planning disciplines to model future adoption scenarios, important opportunities to steer markets toward sustainable outcomes will be lost.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Younger people are more interested in AVs than older people, which contradicts the theory that older adults would benefit more from AVs.
“results show that younger people are more interested in AVs, which contradict with the theory that elder will benefit more from AVs.”
From Public acceptance and perception of autonomous vehicles: a comprehensive review (2021) · cites this paper as [208]
In “Travel Behavior Patterns” (page not provided), the paper says AV mobility services would benefit elderly and disabled people. It does not report that younger people are more interested in AVs than older people, or say that greater interest among younger people contradicts the benefit to older people. The Discussion describes Millennials as more inclined toward on-demand mobility, not AVs specifically. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Preparing a nation for autonomous vehicles: opportunities, barriers and policy recommendations
Fagnant, D. J., & Kockelman, K. (2015) · Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice · doi:10.1016/j.tra.2015.04.003 · Cited by 3,214 · see citing works
Fagnant, D. J., & Kockelman, K. M. (2014) · Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies · doi:10.1016/j.trc.2013.12.001 · Cited by 1,177 · see citing works
Automated Vehicles, On-Demand Mobility, and Environmental Impacts
Greenblatt, J. B., & Shaheen, S. (2015) · Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports · doi:10.1007/s40518-015-0038-5 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
Key Factors Influencing Autonomous Vehicles’ Energy and Environmental Outcome
Morrow, W. R., Greenblatt, J. B., Sturges, A., Saxena, S., Gopal, A., Millstein, D. E., Shah, N., & Gilmore, E. (2014) · Lecture notes in mobility · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-05990-7_12 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Can Transportation Emission Reductions Be Achieved Autonomously?
Simon, K., Alson, J., Snapp, L., & Hula, A. (2015) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b05396 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Morrow, W. R.; Greenblatt, J. B.; Sturges, A.; Saxena, S.; Gopal, A.; Millstein, D.; Shah, N.; Gilmore, E. A. Road Vehicle Automation; Meyer, G., Beiker, S., Eds.; Springer International Publishing, 2014; pp 127-135.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Public acceptance and perception of autonomous vehicles: a comprehensive review
Othman, K. (2021) · AI and Ethics · doi:10.1007/s43681-021-00041-8 · Cited by 347 · see citing works
Lu, M., Taiebat, M., Xu, M., & Hsu, S.-C. (2018) · Journal of Urban Planning and Development · doi:10.1061/(asce)up.1943-5444.0000469 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
- Authors
- Miller, S. A., & Heard, B. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Miller, Shelie A.
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Technology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2016-06-10
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 6119-6121
- ISSN
- 0013-936X (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5851
- OpenAlex
- W2419252038
- Cited by
- 57
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 4.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Environmental Science & Technology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Transportation and Mobility Innovations
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Vehicle emissions and performance
- Keywords
- autonomous vehicles, technology adoption, greenhouse gas emissions, transport emissions, environmental impact, sustainable transport, disruptive technologies, multidisciplinary research
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
