Simulating Life with Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicles through a Naturalistic Experiment with Personal Drivers
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This study addresses the uncertainty surrounding how personally-owned, fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) will impact household travel behavior. Previous research relied on hypothetical surveys or microsimulation models, which often lack precision regarding short-term activity shifts. To provide empirical evidence, the researchers conducted a naturalistic experiment simulating AV ownership by providing private chauffeurs to households, thereby removing the driving task and allowing for zero-occupancy vehicle (ZOV) trips. The experiment involved 43 households in the Sacramento, California region, recruited from the 2018 Sacramento Area Council of Governments household travel survey. Participants were stratified to ensure diversity in demographics, mobility barriers, and baseline vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Households received 60 hours of chauffeur service per week for either one or two weeks. Travel data was collected using GPS devices installed in all household vehicles and a smartphone app (rMove) used by adult household members and chauffeurs. This allowed for detailed tracking of trip purpose, mode choice, and occupancy during control weeks (before and after the treatment) and the chauffeur weeks. The results indicate substantial increases in travel activity during the simulation. The total number of trips increased by an average of 25 percent, with 85 percent of these new trips being ZOV trips where the chauffeur drove alone, often to run errands or avoid parking fees. Average household VMT increased by 60 percent, with over half of this increase attributed to ZOV trips. Concurrently, households shifted away from other modes: transit use dropped by 70 percent, ride-hailing by 55 percent, biking by 38 percent, and walking by 10 percent. Households with existing personal vehicles reduced their use of non-autonomous vehicles by 53 percent, shifting mileage to the "AV" service. The study found significant variation across demographic groups. Households with mobility barriers, particularly those with seniors or disabilities, experienced the largest VMT increases (up to 121 percent) and reported improved lifestyle freedom. Households with lower baseline auto-dependency saw the highest percentage increase in VMT (137 percent), as they replaced non-motorized and transit trips with AV use. Conversely, high-VMT households and families with children saw smaller increases. The authors conclude that while AVs offer significant accessibility benefits for vulnerable populations, they also pose risks of increased congestion and emissions due to ZOV trips. They recommend proactive policy measures, such as disincentives for empty vehicle trips, and potential allowances for users who gain the most mobility benefits.
Key finding
Access to a simulated personally-owned autonomous vehicle increased total household trips by 25 percent and vehicle miles traveled by 60 percent, primarily due to a surge in zero-occupancy trips.
Methodology
naturalistic
Sample size: 43
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
- Methodological Resource: dataset resource
- Theoretical Contribution: computational model