The benefits, challenges of self-driving cars

Fully autonomous cars also could improve land use in several ways. Currently, about 31 percent of the space in the central business districts of forty-one major cities is dedicated to parking, but autonomous vehicles would be able to drop passengers off, and then drive themselves to remote, satellite parking lots. The technology also might reduce car ownership and promote ride-sharing.

However, Anderson said that many of the benefits will accrue to parties other than the technology’s purchasers. These positive societal effects may justify some form of government subsidy to encourage more consumers to use the new technology.

Negative consequences include the possibility that the technology may encourage greater travel and increase total vehicle miles traveled, leading to more congestion. If autonomous vehicle software becomes standardized, a single flaw could lead to many accidents. Internet-connected systems might be hacked by the malicious.

Researchers say there also are a number of issues that car manufacturers and policymakers will have to work through before the widespread use of driverless vehicles becomes common. While technology can sense and react quicker than humans, it is not as good at interpreting data. For example, is that object in the road a deer, a cardboard box or a bicycle? Weather, terrain and roadway signage vary across the United States — will a vehicle be able to perform in a dry, flat climate as well as a snowy one with steep hills?

Car manufacturers also will have to deal with the issue of sensor failure, Anderson said. Designing a system that recognizes when a sensor is not transmitting any information is easier than developing one that can determine when a sensor is throwing out intermittent or nonsensical data. Developing the infrastructure to allow systems such as traffic signals to communicate with these cars also will be complex and potentially costly, and making sure the technology is secure from hackers is another concern. Finally, despite growing interest in autonomous vehicle technology, it may be too expensive for widespread adoption.

The study recommends the following policy considerations:

• Policymakers should avoid passing regulations prematurely while the technology is still evolving.
• Distracted-driving laws will need to be updated to incorporate autonomous vehicle technology.
• Policymakers should clarify who will own the data generated by this technology and how it will be used, and address privacy concerns.
• Regulations and liability rules should be designed by comparing the performance of autonomous vehicles to that of average human drivers and the long-term benefits of the technology should be incorporated into determinations of liability.

Other authors of the study include Nidhi Kalra, Karlyn D. Stanley, Constantine Samaras, Paul Sorensen, and Oluwatobi Oluwatola.

The release notes that research for the study was funded by the RAND Initiated Research Program, a program designed to fund projects that are likely to be important in the future but for which existing outside sources of funding are limited.

The research was conducted within the RAND Transportation, Space, and Technology program, which addresses topics relating to transportation systems, space exploration, information and telecommunication technologies, nano- and biotechnologies and other aspects of science and technology policy.

— Read more in James M. Anderson et al., Autonomous Vehicle Technology: A Guide for Policymakers (RAND Corporatio, 2014)