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. 2022 Jul 15:830:154615.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154615. Epub 2022 Mar 18.

Environmental impacts of autonomous vehicles: A review of the scientific literature

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Free article

Environmental impacts of autonomous vehicles: A review of the scientific literature

Óscar Silva et al. Sci Total Environ. .
Free article

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) may have significant environmental impacts although there are still few studies focusing solely on these effects. A vast majority of articles address environmental issues as a secondary outcome and, above all, emissions are the main topic. As the notion of environmental impacts concerns many aspects than just air pollution, this paper aims to explore and show the findings and flaws of current research with a wider vision. For that purpose, a systematic review of the scientific literature was carried out broadening the scope to land, water, noise, and light pollution in addition to air. The results reveal potential benefits of AVs due to technical improvements, new possibilities in design and traffic flow enhancement, but the benefits depend on penetration levels, shared mobility acceptance and the interaction with other modes of transport. On the other hand, negative effects are also identified related to the decrease in the value of trip time and user tendencies. Among other potential impacts, changes in land use are increasingly being studied. These changes can lead to significative impacts on emissions as well as on soil and water although the latter have not yet been considered. Lastly, the likely improvements in noise and light pollution are scarcely explored. Given the lack of study of some of the environmental outcomes of AVs, it is not possible to draw a precise conclusion on their overall impact, calling for more comprehensive studies that enable to identify all the measures to be taken to achieve a sustainable future.

Keywords: Autonomous vehicles; Emissions; Environmental impacts; Literature review.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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