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- [Narrator] Automated and
connected vehicle technology

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is fast becoming an integral part

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of our transportation environment.

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And even though we may still be years away

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from fully self-driving
vehicles, what will the impact be

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on our roadways once cars

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and trucks can drive
themselves on long trips

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with low effort from the
passengers inside them?

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What does this mean

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for freight movement and
what happens to air travel?

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The Center for Transportation
Research at the University

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of Texas at Austin
recently tackled questions

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like these in a Texas Department

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of Transportation Research
project that looked at the future

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of long distance travel
in Texas and the nation.

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- So we recognize that
autonomous vehicles are coming

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and that's gonna change
the way that we plan

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for transportation in this state.

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And so from that, we needed
research to understand

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particularly for movement

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between cities and rural communities

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and some of those longer haul
roads that TexDOT maintains

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how transportation might change.

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- TexDOT and other agencies
need to have assets

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and investments on the ground in time

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for those big influxes of
new transportation modes.

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Otherwise, we risk a lot of issues

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safety issues, congestion
issues, emissions issues.

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So this project was designed

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to look at the future
of long distance travel

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across the state of Texas
and the entire nation

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due to autonomous vehicles
making driving easier

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whether it's trucks or
its passenger vehicles.

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- [James] The key takeaways
from the research was that

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possibly air travel would
shift away from shorter flights

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to longer flights with
vehicular travel making

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up the difference.

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Long distance autonomous trucking

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will become more competitive with rail.

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And AVs may induce some populations

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to pick further travel destinations

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than they normally would.

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- [Kara] It ends up creating, you know,

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more ground transportation

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more vehicle miles traveled
on the Texas network.

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And that's a big takeaway
as well as certain ports

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having more or less, you
know, traffic from freight

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of different commodity types.

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So we're also tracking
each commodity type.

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I think that this
continues to build the case

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of the importance of highways

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and major road systems
between major urban areas,

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commercial areas, and rural areas.

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We see that traffic is just gonna continue

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to go up as more technologies introduced

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into the transportation system.

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- But if you look at all trips

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across all distance categories

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then you do expect maybe
25 to 50% more vehicle

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miles traveled.

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And so you really need
something like policies

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to help manage demand
and keep things flowing.

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- TexDOT is going to conduct another phase

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of research focused
even more on autonomous

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freight movement in the state.

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And all of this should
be combined to help our

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planners understand how freight
is gonna move in the future.

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- [Narrator] For more information

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and to find the publication
for this project,

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please visit the TexDOT research library

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at the link shown below.