Assessing societal impacts in future automated driving scenarios: Tentative expert estimates

The study was designed to assess societal impacts of automated driving in four future service scenarios. Experts in automated driving assessed impacts on eight impact areas. Overall, the effects were assessed to be most beneficial in a future scenario highlighting success in shared mobility and the role of public authorities. The assumed changes in driving behaviour would contribute in better road safety but less efficient traffic flow. Some negative effects in mobility were associated in three of the four future scenarios, mostly in a scenario highlighting use of private automated cars. Some costs were expected already in the short term with increase in travel comfort. Besides describing potential impacts in different development paths, the paper provides an initial assessment of the factors affecting them. All results are tentative estimates that should be verified in further empirical studies.