Deloitte Study on Autonomous Driving: How will City Traffic Change by 2035?

A recent study by Deloitte examined mobility for the year 2035 and sees above all an increase in traffic.

There have already been several studies that have pointed out that autonomous driving could also lead to an increase in traffic. Now the Deloitte study also supports this theory. According to the study, this will would also have an effect on public transport. Deloitte’s research assumes that autonomous driving has reached level 5 in 2035. This would open up new fields of business - above all the robotic taxi. In addition, there would be carpooling concepts that would become cheaper with automated vehicles.

Based on this assumption, calculations have been carried out that imply movement patterns, population development and the living and commuting situation. Based on the data available, the researchers came to the conclusion that traffic would increase as a result of the development of autonomous driving. This would also lead to more congestion. The attractiveness and convenience of autonomous driving would reduce the number of public transport users.

Since the capacity utilization of the robot taxis is very high, it makes them cheaper than the private car. This would also lose importance under development. The costs for a robot taxi would amount to 34 cents per kilometer, with the carpooling concept the price would even be 15 cents per kilometer.

According to the study, around 740,000 automated vehicles could travel through Germany’s cities by 2035 in view of this development. Compared to today, the number of taxis would increase twelvefold, accounting for 30 percent of the total mileage. The private car would still account for 32 percent of the distance travelled and public transport would fall from 20 to 14 percent.

According to the researchers, older people and people without a driving license would be the main users of autonomous means of transport. This is credited to the high level of comfort and the convenience of a door-to-door service.

Autonomous driving would have one further advantage: the amount of parking space needed in the city would be reduced. But due to the increased traffic volume, which could increase by up to 40 percent, the average speed in the cities would decrease by ten percent and the travel time would increase by an average of 2.5 minutes.