By: Matt Dickens, APTA Policy Analyst

The 50th anniversary of the Urban Mass Transportation Act (UMTA) is coming up in July. With that legislation, the federal government embarked on an important partnership with our nation?s public transit agencies to preserve and improve public transportation service across the country. The public transportation industry has come a long way in those 50 years, and major technological advancements continue to be part of that progress.

Self-driving cars have been in the news again recently, as Google released a design for a new self-driving vehicle with no manual controls. Some have suggested that we need to start rethinking transportation planning now so we can anticipate a future in which self-driving cars are widespread and in heavy use. However, self-driving car technology has the potential to make public transportation more important to a larger percentage of people.

Like many other technologies that are now ubiquitous, self-driving car technology will take many years to mature and enter widespread use. As regular consumers adopt self-driving technology, so too will public transportation agencies. Take hybrid vehicle technology, for example. In 2004, less than 1% of public transportation buses used hybrid technology, but by 2013 over 13% of those buses were hybrids. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, only around 1% of light-duty vehicles are hybrids. It seems likely that self-driving technology will be adopted by public transportation agencies, possibly more quickly than they are adopted by the general public. As a result, public transportation agencies will reap early benefits.

Self-driving cars even have the potential to make public transportation more important to more people. Some future views of self-driving cars promise that people will be able to hail an autonomous taxi at a moment?s notice, and that this will make individual car ownership less important. If these developments do happen and owning a car for off-peak trips is less important, then more households may choose to become car-free or car-light households. This will encourage more use of alternative transportation like public transportation, walking, and biking, and will likely lead to more people using those alternative modes for their peak-period travel.

Even with self-driving cars in the mix, public transportation will still be essential to peak-period travel. Public transportation running in dedicated rights-of-way will still be likely to carry more passengers per hour than even self-driving cars. If public transportation agencies adopt self-driving technology, dedicating lanes to public transportation will provide even higher capacity returns on city streets than under current conditions. Automatic acceleration and deceleration will provide a smoother and more fuel-efficient ride for public transportation passengers.

New self-driving car technology is exciting and holds a lot of promise for the future of our transportation system. Public transportation agencies will be adopting pieces of this technology as well so that riders and non-riders alike can benefit. The continuation of a strong federal partnership will ensure that for the next 50 years, public transportation will be as strong or stronger as the 50 years since UMTA.