The impact of driverless cars on an urban landscape
Weitzman School of Design’s Xiaoxia ‘Summer’ Dong focuses on the travel behavior and mode choice impacts of driverless cars.
1 min. read
For Xiaoxia “Summer” Dong, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the Weitzman School of Design, Philadelphia is central to his work. “My research focuses on the travel behavior and mode choice impacts of driverless cars,” says Dong.
Xiaoxia “Summer” Dong is an assistant professor of city and regional planning in the Weitzman School.
In a recent paper in the journal Transportation Research, Dong’s team surveyed 1,000 residents in the Seattle and Philadelphia metro areas, asking if people would jaywalk more often knowing that driverless cars will stop for them. “The majority of respondents supported reducing the speed of driverless cars in urban areas and even disabling driverless features or driverless functions in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic,” says Dong.
While they found that some pedestrians would feel safe sharing the road with driverless cars, Dong notes one of his biggest concerns is the anticipation of driverless cars drowning out tried-and-true strategies to keep a transportation system safe and efficient, including “promoting transit, building high-quality pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, [and] reducing speed on urban streets.”
This story is by John Caperton. To read a longer version of this story, visit Weitzman News.
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