pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Late last month, University of Washington Assistant Professor of Transportation Engineering and PacTrans PI, Dr. Don MacKenzie was invited to the White House for a roundtable on vehicle automation and energy demand. Participants included (of which there were 30 in total) officials from the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, the EPA, and the Executive Office of the President, as well as representatives from industry, academia, and the non-profit sector.

The purpose of the roundtable was to gather input for federal policymakers, in an effort leverage vehicle automation to help reduce energy consumption including the associated environmental impacts of vehicles. “In light of the uncertainty over how much emphasis the incoming Trump Administration will place on energy conservation,” said MacKenzie, “there was a lot of discussion about the potential roles of state and local governments in achieving these goals.”

Dr. MacKenzie’s contributions to the discussion included the idea that we should not assume that the energy savings potential of automation will necessarily be achieved absent further policy actions: “The biggest opportunity for saving energy is to increase occupancy factors, either through travelers sharing rides more often, or riding in smaller vehicles more often. It is widely thought that these changes will be more feasible if self-driving cars lead to increased use of on-demand mobility services.”