Hypercongestion, autonomous vehicle, and urban spatial structure

TL;DR

This paper develops a bathtub-based land-use model for a monocentric city to study how hypercongestion and its mitigation via perimeter control interact with autonomous vehicles (AVs) to shape urban spatial structure. It explicitly links short-run trip-timing decisions under hypercongestion with long-run residential-location choices, incorporating AVs through a network-capacity effect and a value-of-time (VOT) reduction. The results show that perimeter control decreases the short-run commuting cost and yields a less dense urban form, while AVs can either raise or lower costs in the presence of hypercongestion and can induce outward city expansion even if suburban population falls; under perimeter control, AVs consistently reduce costs and promote a less dense city. These findings underscore hypercongestion as a crucial factor that can reverse standard bottleneck predictions and inform TDM and land-use planning in the AV era.

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of hypercongestion mitigation by perimeter control and the introduction of autonomous vehicles on the spatial structures of cities. By incorporating a bathtub model, we develop a land use model where hypercongestion occurs in the downtown area and interacts with land use. We show that hypercongestion mitigation by perimeter control decreases the commuting cost in the short-run and results in a less dense urban spatial structure in the long-run. Furthermore, we reveal that the impact of autonomous vehicles depends on the presence of hypercongestion. Introduction of autonomous vehicles may increase the commuting cost in the presence of hypercongestion and cause a decrease in suburban population, but make cities spatially expanded outward.This result contradicts that of the standard bottleneck model. When perimeter control is implemented, the introduction of autonomous vehicles decreases the commuting cost and results in a less dense urban spatial structure. These results show that hypercongestion is a key factor that can change urban spatial structures.

Figures (26)

• Figure 1: Model structure
• Figure 2: Accumulation in the downtown area
• Figure 3: Speed in the downtown area
• Figure 4: MFD in the downtown area.
• Figure 5: NEF of suburban commuters in downtown area

Theorems & Definitions (13)

• Lemma 1
• proof
• Proposition 1
• Lemma 2
• proof
• Lemma 3
• proof
• Proposition 2
• Lemma 4
• proof