Preparing for Connected and Automated Vehicles: Insights from North Carolina Transportation Professionals

Abstract

The connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) that are expected to be increasingly common on U.S. roads in the coming decades offer potential benefits in safety, efficiency, and mobility; they also raise concerns related to equity, access, and impacts on land use and travel behavior, as well as questions about extensive data requirements for CAVs to communicate with other vehicles and the environment in order to operate safely and efficiently. We report on interviews with North Carolina transportation experts about CAVs and their implications for sustainable transportation that serves all travelers with affordable, safe, and dignified mobility that also produces fewer environment impacts (emissions to air, water, and land; resource consumption; land use changes). The data reveal great interest among transportation professionals about a CAV transition, but a lack of consensus on the state of play and necessary next steps. Concerns include impacts on planning practice; implications for land use, equity, and safety; and data security and privacy. The findings suggest that local, regional, and state agencies would benefit from clear technical guidance on how to prepare for CAVs and to engage with the public, given high interest about a coming CAV transition. Intense data requirements for CAVs and associated infrastructure, as well as the regulatory and policy tools that will be required, raise concerns about threats to data safety and security and argue for proactive action.

1. Introduction

The connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) that are expected to be increasingly common on the nation’s roads in the coming decades rely on a suite of technologies to scan and travel through the environment, identify threats and hazards on the roadway, and communicate with passengers and other travelers. In addition to possible safety and efficiency benefits, CAVs may offer more mobility options for rural communities, people living with disabilities, and those whose ability to drive is limited. The widespread introduction of CAVs may promote shared mobility and alter mandates and models for mass transportation. Sustainable transportation—affordable, safe, dignified, and environment-preserving mobility for all—may benefit from the introduction of CAVs.

Rapid evolution and testing of CAVs continues, even as the implications for local, regional, and state governments are uncertain. Because travel does not happen in a vacuum, but is embedded in physical infrastructure and regulatory and cultural frameworks, the perspectives of transportation professionals about CAVs may shed light on our shared transportation future.

With scant research and limited guidance available on how to prepare for the CAV transition and associated data needs, this study explored how North Carolina (NC) transportation experts view CAVs and their possible impacts on travelers and transportation systems. (See Methods for a discussion of the NC focus.) Widespread adoption of CAVs (for our purposes, Society of Automotive Engineers levels 4–5) is likely to be accompanied by new and growing demands for data collection protocols and concomitant concerns about privacy (e.g., collection and storage of data about vehicles and travel) and security (e.g., unauthorized access and hacking), which Lee and Hess [1] identify as prominent areas of concern. This study addressed the following question: how are planning and transportation professionals preparing themselves and their communities for the arrival of CAVs?

The growing literature on CAVs touches on engineering and technology, regulation, liability and insurance, safety, mobility and accessibility, cost and equity, implications for travel behavior and land use, and more. A subset relates to perceptions and attitudes among both the general public and transportation professionals, including perceptions about the technology and public acceptance of CAVs [2,3,4,5], willingness to use CAVs [5,6,7,8,9], and relationships between attitudes and personal or household factors such as age, education, gender, income, or parenthood [1,10,11,12,13], or to perceived risk [2,3,14].

1.1. Transportation Planning

Connected and automated vehicles have the potential to alter land use and travel behavior, as well as the transportation modeling and analysis employed to understand them [15]. Along with changes in the physical landscape, CAVs likely will impact how people travel, with options to use time liberated from driving for other productive or rewarding uses [16]. Despite claims of some CAV advocates, the potential gains from widespread CAV adoption for individuals, communities and the environment are far from certain [17,18,19], with concerns about possible increases in vehicles miles traveled and emissions (e.g., from empty cruising or idle vehicles) or sprawling land uses, as infrastructure and policies rise to meet demand for CAVs. The benefits of smaller vehicles making more efficient use of road space may be swamped by induced demand and rising VMT, potentially increasing congestion.

The pathway to widespread CAV use remains uncertain, raising thorny questions about regulatory and policy frameworks, liability, and built environment design to protect travelers of all modes [18,20,21,22]. A recent NCHRP report [23] noted “states are acting in anticipation of CAVs, but with significant limitations in the knowledge, skills and abilities of their workforces”.

Another area of concern is the likely displacement of transportation workers such as taxi, transit, and truck drivers [16,17,24], although some of this job loss may be offset by new skills needed in a CAV transition. In addition, CAVs may transform traditional public transportation, although debate continues on whether transit will disappear completely or change format once CAVs have been fully integrated into society. Because it is impossible to predict how, when, and indeed whether this transition will take place) [24], this study’s focus on experts’ perspectives on likely impacts on towns and cities is timely.

1.2. Safety and Equity

Among the various claims made by CAV champions, CAVs’ presumed safety is dominant, given the potential to reduce the number and severity of crashes. The literature reveals a gap between perceived and measured safety, reflecting the complex and changing interaction of technology, familiarity, habits, and trust [3,14].

Shared mobility delivered with CAVs has the potential to serve populations such as non-driving youth, seniors, and disabled people, as well as low-income and other mobility-limited groups [11,12,13]. For these individuals, CAVs may offer a means of connecting to one’s community without the need for a driver’s license or access to a private vehicle or paratransit services.

1.3. Mobility and the Sharing Economy

The ‘3 revolutions’ framework for a CAV transition posits that vehicles will be electrified, connected, and shared. While shared mobility (e.g., ride-hailing or sharing) is widely expected to increase along with the two other pillars [16,21], debate continues as to the likely extent of a shift to shared modes [24,25,26,27,28,29].

With growing urban populations and the expense of owning and maintaining a vehicle, some individuals may opt to forego vehicle ownership for mobility services [21], with CAVs likely to function as part of ride-hailing, and with on-demand networks rather than vehicles owned by individuals [30]. Shared mobility offers the convenience of a private vehicle, while freeing the traveler of the responsibilities of ownership [31,32]. The emerging sharing economy is of particular interest in dense and growing cities, where shared mobility may reduce traffic, congestion, and pollution, although introducing CAVs into ride-sharing fleets may complicate business models [21], and the purported benefits remain contested, with mixed findings from research.

1.4. Data Privacy and Security

Transportation agencies collect and manage extensive data, as part of their responsibility to investigate crashes and understand driver and roadway characteristics. Increasingly, privacy and security are emerging as a concern in anticipation of CAVs, particularly regarding shared modes and mobility delivered by the private sector. Given the heavy use of information technology for connecting vehicles to each other and the environment, and for hailing and tracking vehicles, mobility providers and public-sector regulators are likely to face growing demands to address privacy and security concerns. This highlights a tension between the convenience and efficiency of mobility services requested via mobile devices, and concerns about data privacy and personal security, which could perpetuate and deepen the digital divide, inequities in access, and discrimination. Some research [30] suggests that CAVs are likely to serve less as private vehicles and more as key components of a shared mobility system (ride-hailing, ride-sharing, on-demand service) that releases riders from the responsibilities of vehicle ownership, such as car maintenance, insurance, and vehicle registration [31]. Even as shared mobility operates in many places, uncertainty remains about how the introduction of CAVs into these fleets will require new regimes for privacy regulations, crash liability, and data management [12,33]. Public concerns about the security and privacy of the data on which CAVs rely [1,6,22,34] necessarily must concern the agencies that build, maintain, and operate transportation networks. Earlier studies have highlighted key concerns around safety, privacy, and data security for CAVs in North America [1], and informational privacy and informed consent for collecting large amounts of data on users—a major ethical consideration for CAVs in Europe [35].

This exploratory study asked how public-sector professionals in North Carolina agencies view the arrival of CAVs in their regions, potential benefits and pitfalls of this transition, and expectations for privacy and data security. Following a discussion of our methods, we provide a brief content analysis of interviews, then present and contextualize notable quotations from experts—organized by themes that emerged in the course of interviews. While the instrument was framed around data privacy and security, interviews delved into other topics introduced by interviewees and surfaced new themes—a distinctive quality and strength of qualitative methods.

2. Materials and Methods

This study used interviews to elicit perceptions and insights of 19 NC transportation professionals in various roles across the state. That geographic limitation both reflected the priorities of the funding body, and provided a useful delimiter on a field of study that stretches across other states and up to the federal level, which were beyond the scope of this paper. The qualitative data generated by the interviews were subjected to content analysis to identify major themes and capture the professionals’ nuanced views. A semi-structured interview instrument probed (1) CAV data collection and management protocols and responsibilities; (2) privacy and security concerns; and (3) CAVs’ anticipated impacts on their regions and professional work.

Key informants were identified through a systematic review of public agencies with a transportation function, seeking experts representing a diversity of geography, community size, and organization type. Additional informants were identified using a snowball recruiting technique—a non-probabilistic sampling method to identify relevant experts from professional recommendations. Originally designed as focus groups with a convenience sample, logistics drove a new approach using smaller groups that generated very rich and lively discussions. The 19 participants in nine small groups (eight pairs and one triplet) included four experts from the western (mountain) region, two from the coast, and 13 from the piedmont—the most heavily populated region of the state, which also has the densest road networks. Participants represented medium and large cities, councils of governments, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), private firms, rural planning organizations (RPOs), the NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT), and a regional transit authority. Roles included the following: community and economic development director, MPO and RPO directors, planning director, traffic management engineer, transit director, transportation planner, transportation researcher, and travel demand modeler.

Although exempted by our Institutional Review Board (Appalachian State University HS-23-119), this study employed best practices in instrument development, interviewing, data collection and storage, and analysis. This included standardized scripts for email recruiting and communication, as well as careful storage and handling of transcripts and deidentified data for analysis. The interview instrument included informed consent language, IRB details, a summary of the project, and a brief description of CAVs. In addition to six questions asked of everyone, two region-specific questions were asked of each person, reflecting varying conditions (

Table 1. Interview questions.

#	Region	Question
1	All	What data do you think should be collected in, by, and about CAVs, for use by public agencies?
2	All	How do you believe crash data should be collected, stored, and shared?
3	All	Who should have responsibility for maintaining and updating the data infrastructure?
4	All	What concerns might the public have regarding CAVs collecting data on users?
5	All	Are there any other concerns about CAVs and data that you would like to discuss?
A1	West	How might the mountain landscape and seasonal activities affect the deployment of CAVs?
A2	West	What populations or needs would CAVs most likely serve within your community?
B1	Central	How might travel patterns and infrastructure planning change with the introduction of CAVs?
B2	Central	Do you think the large number of travelers in central NC will affect data management needs for CAVs?
C1	East	How might the seasonal populations of eastern NC affect CAV data collection and management?
C2	East	How might CAV development in eastern NC affect the movement of freight?
	All	Are there any additional topics you would like to discuss?

).

3. Results

Small-group interviews (2–3 participants) were conducted and recorded via Zoom by two researchers, and transcribed with the voice-to-text tool Otter. Cleaned transcripts and a preliminary code structure provided the data for coding and analysis. Themes that emerged during the process of cleaning (reading while listening, and correcting transcription errors) provided the superstructure for a code matrix, with 77 codes organized under nine themes (code families). We used the content analysis program Atlas.ti (version 23) to code transcripts and assess code frequency, which reflected analysts’ judgment of the meaning of text data. In addition, a code co-occurrence network diagram was created using Gephi 0.10.1, to visually analyze the relationship among themes frequently discussed together during the interviews.

3.1. Content Analysis

Content analysis revealed themes represented by 77 codes that captured common concepts and allowed for comparison across interviews.

Table 2. Most frequently used codes, with code groups, from most to least frequent.

Code	Examples	Code Group/s	Count
Privacy Concerns	Government tracking; personal location; data breaches and misuse	Public Perception	30
Private Sector	Data managers; sharing data with public sector; mobility services	Data	23
Data Management	Collection, storage, protection; crash reporting	Data	22
Street Infrastructure	Adaptation of roads for CAVs; bicycle/pedestrian safety	Infrastructure	18
Crash Data	Black-box recorders; need for streamlined consistent collection	Data; Safety	17
State Regulation	Central oversight role and responsibility; safeguard data	Data; Policies and Regulations	17
Safety Concerns	Perceived safety of technology; attendant needed on CAVs	Public Perception; Safety	16
Pedestrian Safety	CAVs worse for pedestrians; environment privileges vehicles	Safety	15
Public Domain	State role in aggregating/protecting data; data as shared resource	Data; Policies and Regulations	15
Land Use	Infrastructure and travel interact; potential to reallocate space	Infrastructure	14
Parking Infrastructure	Opportunity for reuse; resource for the future	Infrastructure	14
Privacy Policies	Need for privacy guidelines; subscriptions with tiered privacy	Data; Policies and Regulations	14
Congestion	Uncertainty about CAV impact on congestion; need for data	Data	14
Transit Demand	Potential for automated transit; transit will change or disappear	Riders; Services	13

displays the most commonly applied codes. Among the 526 coded passages, the most frequently assigned codes were Privacy Concerns (30), Private Sector (23), and Data Management (22).

Privacy Concerns applied to the possible encroachment of CAV data collection into riders’ personal information. Many experts called for proactive privacy policies, likely in the form of state or federal regulation. Private Sector was used, for example, to reflect an expectation that CAVs would be introduced onto roadways by private companies, with public-private partnerships a likely means of regulation.

Similar to Privacy Concerns, Data Management targeted the “who” behind data generation, collection, and storage. As a central NC engineer noted, “we have so many different vendors entering this marketplace of transportation data that you need some central organization to play that oversight role.” Experts identified the NCDOT as the logical entity to serve as a clearinghouse for data generated and stored by CAVs, given their technical expertise and capacity for handling large amounts of data. Concern about the involvement of private-sector companies in CAV-based mobility was raised frequently, including calls for a private-public partnership to protect riders’ personal information. A transportation researcher in central North Carolina suggested that mobility companies may be less interested in getting people where they are going efficiently and safely, and instead, getting them to “use a computer that they then must use” throughout the duration of their trip, providing a rich source of data.

The next tier (by frequency) of codes included Street Infrastructure, Crash Data, State Regulation, and Safety Concerns (Table 2).

3.1.1. Co-Occurrence of Codes

While the code frequency table revealed the most prominent themes in the interviews, co-occurrence data suggested connecting concepts. Figure 1 shows the co-occurrence network of frequently used codes, highlighting concepts that were discussed together. Note that Transit Demand and Street Infrastructure did not co-occur with other terms, and therefore were excluded from Figure 1. However, Public Sector, which is not in the top 14 codes, was discussed with Private Sector, Data Management, and State Regulation, and therefore was added to Figure 1.

Quotations sharing more than one code are represented via connecting lines in the co-occurrence network diagram, with thicker lines denoting multiple co-occurrences. Data was the main category appearing in the co-occurrence network. Many experts shared concerns about the role of state regulations with respect to data management. They also wondered whether CAV operational data would be integrated into the current crash data reporting system, which would place additional burdens on emergency responders. Since CAVs may become a subscription service, some informants highlighted the privacy concerns associated with the sharing of personal information.

Parking infrastructure and land use were also prominent in the co-occurrence network, as informants noted that changes in travel demand could alter the need for parking, potentially freeing land currently dedicated to parking for other land uses.

3.1.2. Variation by Region

Participants from all regions frequently brought up topics coded for Public Perceptions, Data, and Infrastructure, while the themes of Technology and Riders were mentioned less frequently. Topics surrounding intersections, precipitation, and private-public partnerships were frequently mentioned by experts in western NC, while those from the more populous coast related to congestion data, bicycle/pedestrian safety, and the potential of CAVs for on-demand services. Informants in central NC, with the state’s largest cities and heaviest traffic, brought up state regulation of CAVs, MPOs, and travel demand modeling. Code frequencies did not vary meaningfully across professional roles.

4. Discussion—Transportation Experts in Their Own Words

Interviews with NC transportation experts yielded several major themes revealing their views on CAVs. Some expressed that CAVs might be useful as parts of fleets—including transit, freight, and for evacuations—where slower but continuous operation replaces expensive labor. The perceived primary promise of CAVs varied, although capacity, safety, and equity were highlighted. An NCDOT official noted interim guidance on incorporating CAVs into traffic forecasting that assumes increased capacity through vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity, but noted challenges with the ‘last mile:’

“Once you get to the last mile…there’s a transition that will take a lot longer and [require] a lot more data; I don’t know if we’re ready.”

Several anticipated induced demand swamping capacity, such as an urban transportation planner:

“In a growing economic region, where you add capacity, you induce demand, and so that extra capacity will fill up.… It could increase the amount of travel that our roadways can carry, but not necessarily reduce congestion.”

The precise pathway for uptake is uncertain. A former city planning director tied the tipping point to safety: if data demonstrate conclusively that CAVs are safer than human drivers, it would trigger regulatory changes by NHTSA. A state planner suggested generational differences, with younger travelers more comfortable with technology and less concerned about data harvesting. A senior state transportation engineer linked uptake to simple economics, stating:

“When [the technology] is ready, I think the uptake is going to be quick, because somebody’s going to start marketing a subscription…at 30 cents a mile. It’s going to take about one minute of math to decide, whoa, that’s half the price of my current cars sitting in my garage right now doing nothing.”

4.1. CAVs and Transportation Planning

As with the public, attitudes vary among professionals, from positive (from a former planning director):

“When you reach a critical mass of driverless vehicles in the marketplace, a lot of things start to change…. You can start to realize maximizing the efficiency… for highways. You can create platoons of vehicles driving 12” apart, and increased aerodynamics and such, you would basically create CAV-only lanes on highways, and those vehicles could travel 100 miles an hour, bumper to bumper in a completely safe manner”.

… to negative, from a private-sector senior transit planner:

“I am very, very concerned and pessimistic about CAVs and what benefits [they will bring] to humans, especially in the U.S. …other than prevention of vehicle-to-vehicle crashes. My current sense is that they will be worse particularly for places where people walk, bike, and maybe get around with wheelchairs and strollers. And that they may be the tool that ultimately permanently locks in auto dependence in the U.S.”

… and the mixed view of an MPO planner:

“Connected vehicles, in limited access highway environments, to make things safer and operate more efficiently—I’m very hopeful about that.… Having large numbers of vehicles that can talk to each other in a high-speed environment…I see the promise there. But that is, in some ways, a sanitized environment. And I don’t want us to sanitize more of our environments [which affects] freedom of movement and socializing in public spaces.”

Several experts described the profession having acknowledged the reality of a CAV transition, without actively incorporating CAVs into their work. A long-time DOT division engineer noted:

“Our experience with…this whole technology is essentially zero up to this point. [We] have attended several…transportation summits, where we have had wonderful presentations from national experts talking about this new foray into transportation across the nation and how quickly this new technology is being developed. [But] in terms of data, we really have seen very little of that. And quite frankly, we have considered very little of this in the planning of our new transportation projects moving forward.”

A former city planning director described long-range plans produced by MPOs as “functionally an air quality forecast” that does not account for advances in technology (including CAVs):

“We’re really throwing darts at the board, as far as the accuracy of future land use and demand forecasting.”

Widespread adoption of CAVs will need improved travel demand modeling, which a transportation planner noted now relies on outdated data and backward-facing assumptions. An MPO planner described a more future-oriented travel demand modeling approach:

“… knowing what things are in today’s environment is not all that helpful to make smart decisions about what we want it to be in 10 or 20 or 50 years…. A lot of times we look at traffic volumes and say,’ there’s a lot of demand to travel here.’ But that might just be because of the way the network is loading today. And people would rather not be driving there; they’d rather have a different route or a different way to get there.”

4.2. Other Modes

Pedestrians were mentioned frequently, such as the MPO planner who expressed concern about connected vehicle technology requiring pedestrians to carry a device in mixed traffic to avoid being hit. A regional council planner described non-motorized travelers as underserved, riding on unsafe streets or walking without sidewalks, and likely to fare worse sharing roads with CAVs:

“I think with the CAVs they will feel less comfortable on the roads…. How are these bicycle and pedestrian plans going to prepare for the eventual deployment of CAVs? These bicycle pedestrian plans sometimes are looking 25-plus years in the future.… We need to start really looking at protected bicycle lanes and protected pedestrian lanes to make sure that that community feels safe still using the roadways.”

The director of a large MPO described the convenience of CAVs—for those who can afford them—as removing the incentive to use transit except for those who cannot afford CAV access. An MPO senior planner reinforced the point—widespread CAVs create competition that could dampen transit demand. A state engineer claimed CAVs will change forever the course of transit, at least for local mobility:

“I’m very pessimistic about public transportation. I think it’s dead…in a CAV world. Why would anybody ever get on a bus? Well, outside of Manhattan and London and Tokyo and a few dense places. But North Carolina, if you can go door to door in a CAV with a subscription, like I’m imagining, I think a light rail is dinosaur technology…. The transit agencies will morph into agencies that subsidize subscriptions for people that can’t afford it. …local public transportation, I think is within a generation that’s it’s going to wither and go away.”

However, a regional transit director stated that CAVs have the potential to improve transit on cost, convenience, and reliability, offering great possibilities once fully automated, by providing access to locations like campuses or public buildings without travelers needing to find parking.

4.3. CAVs and Land Use

Land use was a prominent topic, as changing travel demand may alter needs for urban parking and curb access and for land at the urban fringe. A common insight regarding parking was that demand will drop in urban areas, freeing up valuable space for alternative land uses. A senior state engineer suggested this could lead to more compact urban development, greater housing affordability, and increased walk- and bike-ability. A former city planning director called out the potential tax revenue benefits of eliminating public parking:

“When you buy land for a parking deck, you’re taking that money off the tax rolls.… Whereas, if you decommission the parking deck, and you return that very valuable urban land to the private side, then we’re getting tax revenues from that property.”

Parking that does remain should be shared, managed, unbundled from other land uses, and priced. On-street parking can be converted to other uses as well, as noted by a state engineer:

“Create a space that can be converted easily into something else, since I don’t need to store my car there anymore. A narrower lane, moving the house up closer to the street, because I don’t need a driveway [or] parking spaces anymore. And, when it’s raining and my Uber [comes] up in front of my curb, I don’t want to have to walk out in the rain.”

A former city planning director weighed in on the challenges of removing privately provided parking due to the prevailing paradigm of minimum parking requirements for new construction:

“The challenge is going to be convincing the powers that be in terms of the construction market to not offer that amenity…. We think there’s probably a better way to do this, because it’s really creating problems…. So, you get rid of the driveway, that’s a huge pad of impervious surface that goes away, and then you get rid of the garage. And that either can be converted to usable space or not have to be included, as you’re reducing the cost of construction.”

Another feature of the built environment ripe for change is the curb, with lively debate underway about how the curb should be managed and priced, particularly in congested areas with commerce and foot traffic. A former city planning director said:

“In areas where you have on-street parking currently, you’d have to start removing some of that to create these pickup and drop-off zones to allow for the CAVs to get their passengers. But if you remove enough of the on-street parking, then that creates opportunity for multimodal things like wider sidewalks and bike facilities, in addition to those CAV zones; there’s a potential benefit there.”

A senior state engineer lamented the loss of auto-oriented businesses while expressing doubt that land currently used for parking would be transformed for better uses:

“Imagine a city without auto oriented businesses, right? Pull up a GIS map of Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, any of them, and subtract all the car dealerships, muffler shops, most of the gas stations…. Maybe some of those car dealerships get turned around, bought by Tesla, or Toyota or Uber or whoever, where they can park their cars at night and recharge them, service them, etc. …. Most of the auto-oriented businesses disappear. That’s a tough pill to swallow.”

CAVs will also likely change land uses at the periphery, as the senior state engineer predicted:

“There’ll be sprawl. Because then, you can easily move two hours out from where your office is… So, the headline to me is downtown wins, sprawl wins, and suburbs lose.”

That sentiment was reiterated by the director of an urban planning organization, noting the likely severe environmental impacts of increased VMT and peripheral land conversion.

Others disagreed, arguing that the positive impacts of CAVs on small towns and rural areas would outweigh the consequences of sprawl. A state engineer expressed confidence that CAVs may thrive in some small towns, depending on size and relative location. In rural regions, populations that might particularly benefit from CAVs include older, younger, and people with limited mobility. On the other hand, the director of a regional council expressed doubts about CAVs’ ability to navigate remote rural areas, with narrow winding roads, weak pavement marking, spotty connectivity, and winter weather.

Another regional council planner also sees rural challenges:

“How are we going to get them to these rural communities to pick up workers, pick up employees and bring them back? How are we going to make sure that rural communities are benefiting from this technology?”

4.4. Safety and Equity Concerns

A municipal planner noted that, given VisionZero goals, CAV safety is key, with lingering questions about how well the technology recognizes people. A state engineer asserted that crashes involving CAVs are likely to raise alarm and drive public suspicion in ways that obscure the relative safety benefits the technology may offer in the aggregate. That engineer urged acceptance of the risks, noting that crashes, fatalities, and lawsuits are likely to be part of the process of progress toward the goal of lives saved over time.

Who may benefit from CAVs, and who may be left out? ‘Aging in place’ goals get a boost from CAVs, especially in rural areas, where older and non-driving people may be isolated. Hundreds of thousands of low-mobility individuals may benefit from increased access to opportunity. A senior MPO planner described the complexity involved in setting prices when equity concerns are involved:

“You’re sort of pricing a population out when you do this so there must be a component of incorporating some type of equity piece to make it valuable to have access to your jobs.”

Subscriptions offer a mechanism to target levels of service and maximize profit. A state engineer described algorithms to keep CAVs in motion efficiently, throughout the day, serving 9a-5p peaks:

“As a retired person, I’d get a great discount for making my trip at 10am or 2pm.… They’re going to offer a subscription and to the premium people say: ‘we’re going to guarantee an arrival time; you’re going to get to your destination plus or minus a minute.’ And we’re going to do that by routing others, us old people with lousy subscriptions—they’re going to put us on the back roads, to clear space for the premium people.”

4.5. Data Collection, Management, and Storage

Data collection from CAVs may need new protocols, including for crash data. Police now enter data and images at crash scenes. An NCDOT engineer indicated CAVs will likely have black-box data collection and will send emergency alerts faster; this was echoed by MPO and RPO regional planners. An urban planner described the challenge of consistency, welcoming CAVs’ potential for fuller, more consistent crash data to improve understanding of crash causation. An MPO planner expected future crash data to be more detailed and specific, noting automated data collection’s power to capture behavior that currently slips by, eliminating some driver exploitation of a perceived “freedom to break the law without consequences.”

Concerns about crash data related to quality, quantity, and access. An NCDOT division engineer described long delays in getting data that supports further investigation, stating “the more automated the better” for data accuracy, consistency, and timeliness, assuming proper protection. A senior municipal planner noted the value of data aggregation for anonymity:

“[T]he way that this is working now, personal information is not retained with the data; it gets aggregated, at least up to something like a traffic analysis zone… so that your exact travel patterns aren’t being reported with your name attached.”

Views varied on who should and will lead on data. A coastal MPO planner cited social media as a concern that may demand a non-profit quasi-governmental effort to develop and maintain a safe and efficient data system. A private-sector transit planner expected private developers to take the lead, with regulatory action trailing, noting that highway data is more robust than data for non-motorized transit:

“… because it’s been better funded. And because vehicles have things like a vehicle identification number, and they have maintenance records that are tied to that VIN, and if their car violated emission standards, you could probably go look that up if you have access to the data. But you know, my bicycle is not registered. And if any of us walks down the street, we’re not a registered vehicle, but we have shoes on and those are functionally our pedestrian vehicle.”

But many professionals—municipal and regional planners as well as DOT division officials and a transit director—identified the NCDOT as the logical entity to store and manage data, given their oversight role with vendors, and established relationships with MPO/RPOs and local governments. An urban council director noted that while major cities have planning capacity, smaller communities may need assistance. An urban transportation planner agreed the state should lead, given the speed of change, limited capacity of cities, and goal of more consistency; this planner described the range of data that would—and would not—be ‘fair game’:

“Anything that’s kind of public, so information about our built environment, our streets, traffic signals, sidewalks, crossings, anything that has already been collected, that would support safe driving and safe system operations. I think some of the information that shouldn’t be collected is anything that can be traced back […] to the actual user of the vehicle, and how that may connect to like a home location, information about their demographics, about who they are as travelers, and that can then potentially be shared and connected with a wealth of information… already out there.”

An MPO planner noted that data on speed may be useful for identifying congestion, dangerous human driving and risk-taking, and CAV computing problems. Acceleration data sheds light on safety, while origin/destination data tie into land use and road networks. Another MPO planner described data collection as being expected of the public sector, and not of interest to the private sector, with no incentive for a profit-seeking company as currently structured. A state official spoke on shared responsibility for data—ideally a resource anyone can access. With the second largest state system (behind only Texas), the NCDOT is likely to take a prominent role in data management, while sharing responsibility and resources with cities. Indeed, a senior state engineer sees that agency continuing along a well-established path, having collected crash data for 80 years—, something unlikely to change in the coming decades.

Another MPO planner addressed the lack of control over technology and data, including rogue actors:

“One of the biggest concerns I have isn’t about the capacity or how we use it, or how we protect it; it’s how do we handle […] somebody who says: You know what, I don’t want to follow these rules, I’m going to program my car differently. I’m going to write my own software, I’m going to hack it, I found some way to get it to do something that is good for me. […] I think it’s going to be hard to prevent a lot of that from happening.”

4.6. CAVs, Data, and Privacy Expectations

Comments on data and privacy included observations about possibly misplaced public concerns about data security, in light of ubiquitous cellphone ownership and associated heavy and largely unregulated harvesting of personal and spatial data. A state division engineer acknowledged the heartfelt privacy concerns of many, while noting the reality of cellphone carriers surrendering—knowingly or not—their personal data. A private-sector transit planner echoes that sentiment:

“People are like, well, ‘I don’t want the government tracking me. I don’t want people to know where I am.’ [But] I’m being tracked, I’m being triangulated by three cell towers. And of course, ‘we trust in you Verizon, but you know, the government—it’s different.’ So, I think there’s just kind of a cultural touchstone there. […] Some reason people are comfortable giving their data away to a private company, but not to the government.”

An MPO planner mused that the gap—government vs private—may relate to perceived value: people may share location data in exchange for map services or games, yet balk at government action. A researcher weighed in on public and private sectors handling large volumes of personal and vehicle data, noting unanswered questions about who processes it, and how. This is relevant, e.g., for pilot studies that address dropping gas tax revenue as EVs proliferate, with volunteers carrying tracking technology:

“So, if you have a CAV, you essentially already have an automated way to track VMT. […] But that would clearly not be anonymous. So then you have to make that decision. Is this going to be part of your public DMV record for compensating for gas taxes?”

A regional council director noted the smartphone paradox of reluctance to carry transponders, out of concern over tracking and data harvesting, despite a smartphone revealing their location:

“That transponder is not doing much different; it’s just a blip on the screen and compared to the cell phone in their pocket. But logic doesn’t always dictate. I think that the big concern [is] the data breaches: How is my information going to be used? Who is going to have access to it? Just the traditional things that we express concerns about, while at the same time forgetting that we’ve willingly signed off on making so much of our lives public via ourselves, our smartphones.”

An urban transportation planner also weighed in on data privacy and security, where some travelers are unconcerned about being tracked, and others very concerned—and willing to sue:

“A lot of cities and even the state, we don’t necessarily have the staff, the technical expertise to even know how we handle this or what to look for, what type of loopholes.”

A state engineer described the preferred government role as watchdog—to ensure fair dealing, with companies delivering services as promised. Several mentioned subscriptions as a likely model, to be provided by the private sector, which will develop algorithms that deliver mobility and help manage traffic and congestion—or risk losing subscribers. The state engineer described options ranging from cheap but invasive (giving up data) to pricey but protected, when vehicles kept circulating throughout the day make possible relatively inexpensive subscriptions, such that:

… it will make no sense for most of us to own our own CAVs. So, we will subscribe and then part of our subscription will pay for privacy. If we want to keep our data really, totally private, the company will offer a subscription plan to do that, and it’ll be expensive, and we’ll have that option to pay for it. [But] if I want the cheapest CAV subscription possible, then I’m going to sign away all my rights to everything. […] I’m going to be their guinea pig, but I get a cheap subscription; I get to go where I want.”

A former city planning director described eroded expectations for privacy in public realms, with functions like facial recognition, license plate snaps and other activity at the public/private seam:

“The question becomes, if an autonomous vehicle, say, has video recording, and is recording the presence of other users on the road, like a dashcam […] Is there any expectation of privacy for that data?”

In a shared mobility landscape, data collected by vehicles becomes a commodity that private and public agencies might share. An urban planner described data passed between public and private:

“There could be a lot of use for how we plan for routes, transit, even potentially making ride-hailing more accessible by creating locations where people can gather. […] We’re picking people up at their home locations and or dropping them at their workstation; we just need to be cognizant of that.”

4.7. Limitations

Qualitative data offer a rich and nuanced complement to quantitative and spatial analysis, but are limited in their generalizability. Content analysis programs such as Atlas.ti 23 provide a tool for reducing large volumes of text data and discerning patterns. Coding involves choices that represent analysts’ assessment of the meaning and weight of words spoken by informants, and also reflects the instrument itself—with prompts and cues that shape the conversation. To increase rigor, this study sought out experts who represented a variety of geographic and professional settings, and double-coded transcripts before analysis.

This sample of North Carolina transportation professionals both reflected the priorities of the funding source and provided a useful geographic delimiter that drew experts with some shared work environment and policy/regulatory landscape, and yielded lively small groups with shared or complementary knowledge. Future work with a wider geographic scope would be useful, given the interest in and emergence of CAVs across the nation. In addition, there is much scope to expand such study to other sectors, including industry and the general public.

5. Conclusions

The anticipated arrival of CAVs on our streets is vigorously debated in transportation circles and by the public. The technology continues to evolve, even as management and regulatory regimes remain undeveloped. This uncertainty plays out in discussions, as potential benefits (with gains in mobility, safety, and efficiency most commonly cited) and risks (such as changes to land use, threats to privacy, or reduced access to mobility) are weighed and debated. While transportation research often is framed in terms of technology, efficiency, demand modeling, and other quantitative and spatial approaches, here we use the words of transportation experts to qualitatively understand the state of knowledge, preparation, and expectations relating to an anticipated and yet mysterious transition to CAV-ready streets. Our study reiterates the importance of safety, privacy, and data security—cited as top concerns in earlier studies.

This study found transportation professionals to be actively engaged in discussions about an expected CAV transition, and the tools, technology, and regulation that may be required; at the same time, many of the interviewed experts expressed uncertainty about what actions should be taken, and when. Interviewees were thoughtful and committed to applying emerging information and available guidance relating to CAVs, as well as to communicating with the public about what to expect with a CAV transition. Still, some expressed a sense of disorientation and uncertainty about where to turn for actionable reliable information. Concerns related to data requirements and the burden that they may place on public agencies, as well as to threats to the privacy and personal security of travelers. There was general uncertainty about how the widespread presence of CAVs may affect travel behavior (across all modes) and land use (including parking and curb demand). There was general acceptance that CAVs are likely to become prominent in the growing shared economy, which will impact traditional transportation systems—both private ownership and public transportation services—and the movement of people in their day-to-day lives. The widespread appearance of CAVs will disrupt the established practices and tools employed to collect data from a variety of sources, likely ushering in new data requirements, restrictions, and protocol. Agencies should be preparing now for changing needs to collect, manage, store, and safeguard data, in greater volumes and different formats than presently, and with implications for not only transportation but also land use planning.

Where there were commonly shared sentiments and insights, we find potential for recommendations emerging from this body of text data. A transition to CAV-ready cities will require extensive data and technical training for transportation professionals relating to understanding emerging and future CAV technology, integrating CAVs into land use and travel demand modeling, understanding travel behavior under changing conditions (including demand for curb and lane space), developing regulatory and enforcement regimes, and accounting for new mobility (shared, pooled, subscription, etc.) and infrastructure redesign for all modes, including non-motorized and transit. At the same time, the discussions captured in these interviews did not in fact contain many policy or engineering recommendations; rather, these experts collectively highlighted a gap between current planning practice and the needs of future CAV-ready communities.

These findings suggest that transportation professionals would benefit from clear actionable guidance on how to prepare for connected and automated vehicles, in agencies from the local and regional to the state level, along with materials that support public discussions about current and future CAV development. Concerns expressed about intense data requirements for CAVs, about the need for regulatory and policy tools, and about threats to personal safety and security posed by extensive collection of data by private parties all point to a need for proactive efforts on the part of transportation authorities, supported by state transportation agencies and by ongoing research.