CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue on Autonomous Vehicle Policy Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice ( http://www.journals.elsevier.com/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice/ )

Guest Editors Nidhi Kalra, Senior Information Scientist, RAND Corporation, [email protected] Vincent Marchau, Chair on Uncertainty and Adaptivity of Societal Systems, Radboud University, [email protected] Johanna Zmud, Senior Research Scientist, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, [email protected] Motivation Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have long been a staple of science fiction and Hollywood. In the coming decades, they may become part of our everyday lives. Almost every day, we learn of a new automaker or startup jumping on the AV bandwagon. These technologies have enormous potential to allow for more productive use of time spent in a vehicle and to reduce crashes, costs of congestion, energy consumption, and pollution. They may also alter models of vehicle ownership and patterns of land use, and may create new markets and economic opportunities. Yet they also pose risks and challenges related to safety, cybersecurity, privacy, liability, and much more. Managing their risks and maximizing their benefits requires carefully designed policy and need urgent guidance from the science, technology, and policy research communities. A number of articles have addressed various aspects of AVs policy in a variety of different journals depending on the area of policy, including transportation, vehicle design, robotics, public health, law, environment, ethics, labor, and economics. Yet to date, this body of work has not come together. Such dispersion makes it difficult for researchers in this space to build a body of literature and for policy makers and the public to draw upon it. Scope of the Special Issue This special issue of Transportation Research Part A on autonomous vehicle policy seeks to bring together the most up to date thinking on the range of policy challenges that AVs present. For this issue, we define autonomous vehicles as vehicles that can take control of the entire driving task, as indicated below. 1. Those that are autonomous under some conditions, but may request intervention from a human driver at short notice (corresponding to SAE Level 3) 2. Those that are autonomous under some conditions, and do not request intervention from a human driver in those conditions (corresponding to SAE Level 4) 3. Those that are autonomous under all conditions, and may not need a driver behind the wheel at all (corresponding to SAE Level 5).

The special issue will put forth insightful and influential research on how policy makers can best respond to AV policy challenges and opportunities. Potential topics of interest include, but are not limited to: •

Implications of AVs for mobility, safety, congestion, sustainability, land use, equity and other primary transportation goals;

•

Insights on policy mechanisms to achieve societal goals with AVs;

•

Approaches for planning and investment amid technological uncertainty;

•

Cost-benefit analyses of AVs;

•

Cost-benefit analyses of connected vehicle applications in AVs;

•

Liability and other insurance concerns;

•

Cybersecurity, terrorism, and other threats;

•

Privacy and consumer protection;

•

Economic impacts on different sectors (e.g., professional drivers, health care); and

•

Applications of use case scenarios for policy analysis.

We particularly welcome submissions that forge new conceptual or methodological advances in AV policy analysis and that draw upon interdisciplinary or multi-national views on AV policy. We also seek papers that are grounded in evidence or inferential analysis and that are closely tied to policy guidance, over those that are primarily speculative or that have less relevance for near-term policy. Submission Methods and Timeline 1. Submission of extended abstract by Abstracts are limited to approximately 1000 words Submit abstracts via the form attached to this link: Notification of acceptance of extended abstract by

June 1, 2016 https://goo.gl/7liFpy July 15, 2016

Please treat acceptance of abstracts as an invitation to submit full papers. It does not guarantee acceptance or publication of full papers, which will go through a regular review process. 2. Submission of Full Paper Full paper submission via the Elsevier website by

November 30, 2016

First round review by

February 1, 2017

Revised full papers by

April 1, 2017

Second round review by

June 1, 2017

Final acceptance by

July 1, 2017

Expected publication

Second half of 2017

Inquiries Prospective authors are encouraged to contact the guest editors for feedback and comments about the topics of the research papers.