Autonomous vehicles: Pedestrian heaven or pedes- trian hell?

Autonomous vehicles are an emerging technology that will play a significant role in shaping transport systems in the decades to come. Consequently, implications are anticipated for societal issues ranging from transport safety to congestion, from energy consumption to the allocation of public and private lands. Driverless technology will undoubtedly influence other transport modes, too. With this in mind, the implications for pedestrians have hardly been researched. If the introduction of driverless cars could ultimately result in the disappearance of on-street parking spaces and in crossing streets without so much as glancing towards approaching cars, this could potentially mean that walking becomes much more attractive. At the same time, one could imagine the opposite outcome if society decides that the ability of being picked up and dropped off at any front door or location imaginable renders walking as a state-supported transport mode superfluous. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of autonomous vehicles on pedestrian transport in all its aspects, including the range of possible outcomes, interdependencies, and opposing effects. With the state-of-the-art of pedestrian transport research as a starting point, how can the needs of pedestrians be taken into consideration when fully autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous in daily life?