Potential of Urban Land Use by Autonomous Vehicles: Analyzing Land Use Potential in Seoul Capital Area of Korea

Abstract

This paper simulates land use changes at a point in time when autonomous vehicles are widespread. If autonomous vehicles become the main means of transportation in the future, people can pass their time on the road by reading, eating, and interacting with friends. People will no longer have the burden of having to drive, and this will change people's perception of travel time. In addition, this will have an impact on people's choice of residence. Previous studies have already argued that if autonomous vehicles become commonplace, the city will become suburbanized. However, previous studies have not presented specific models or figures about such future cities. Therefore, this paper seeks to suggest specific models of land use change when autonomous vehicles are dominant through the cellular automata method. For land use, residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, social, public, and green areas are considered, and accessibility, land price, accessibility to green spaces, and neighborhood effects are selected as land use change factors. Simulations based on the scenarios presented in this paper by Heinrichs show two representative results. First, most agricultural areas will decrease, and residential and commercial areas in Gyeonggi province will expand. Second, most land usage will change to residential land use, and only the central commercial area in Seoul will remain. This result can serve as a guideline for urban planning when autonomous vehicles become the main means of transportation. Furthermore, this paper could be helpful for the development of regulations and policy enforcement around autonomous vehicles.