The impact of self-driving cars on the national transport system: an assessment for Belgium

Abstract

We study how full automation of the car fleet affects traffic volumes, congestion, and fuel consumption at the country level in Belgium. The central scenario in this paper looks at the combined effect of a lower opportunity cost of travel time, an increase in the acquisition price of cars by 20%, a decrease in insurance costs by 50% and a decrease in fuel consumption per km by 10%. The improvement in fuel efficiency always dominates the increase in acquisition costs, and average monetary costs decrease. Overall car travel increases by 21 up to 26%. Despite the improvement in fuel efficiency, total fuel consumption for diesel and gasoline increases by 5 up to 10%. The impact on the speed of road modes is highly location specific. A sensitivity analysis revealed that there is a threshold improvement in fuel efficiency where the “rebound effect” is nullified. To counteract the effects of full automation on total demand for car travel, a road charge close to 20 EUR cent per km would be needed.