The End of Driving

Vehicle automation is on dual paths of entrenching private car ownership while simultaneously enhancing transportation services that would make driving unnecessary. Future impacts are uncertain.

The End of Driving challenges the assumption that self-driving cars will by themselves reduce traffic congestion and crashes. Evolving vehicle automation will create safer, more convenient vehicles, yet continued reliance on private ownership will increase traffic volume. The authors explore psychological factors sustaining private vehicle use and the challenges of mixed-driver roads, examining why shared robotaxis face behavioral, political, and policy hurdles that will impede mass adoption, despite substantial public benefit.

This updated edition examines real-world deployments through 2025 and introduces concepts such as zero car-ownership communities, robotaxi pickup and drop-off orchestration, and urban spaces redesigned around greater mode choices for physical access rather than parking. The book compares privately owned automated cars against shared, on-demand driverless vehicles, using new data to show which model best serves cities.

Rather than predicting timelines, the authors use backcasting to map paths toward preferred mobility futures. They propose micro-subsidies, flexible transit integration, and regulatory frameworks to guide automation toward all three pillars of sustainability: ecology, economy, and equity. Shared, automated mobility is achievable and desirable but requires the deliberate actions described in this book.

• Offers a workable public transit solution design melding the traditional “acquire-and-operate” mode with the absorption of new technology
• Provides a step-by-step discussion of digital systems designs and effective regulation-by-data approaches needed for a new urban mobility
• Learning aids include case study scenarios, chapter objectives and discussion questions, sidebars, a glossary, and updated exercises for student readers at the end of every chapter
• New to the second edition: entirely new chapters or sections on the important distinctions between robotaxis and automated driver assistance, analysis of why automated vehicle deployment has not achieved early optimistic forecasts, infrastructure requirements supporting scaled-up robotaxi deployment, importance of on-demand automated microtransit in transit territories where fixed route is inefficient, how private fleets can be managed to expand universal urban mobility, developmental progress on vehicle automation deployment in countries around the world, and the steps needed to achieve zero-car ownership in urban zones.