Impacts of Autonomous Vehicle to Airport Landside Terminal Planning and Design

Abstract

Income from parking and rental car facilities, for most of commercial airports in the U.S., are significant components in their revenue. Airports design the parking capacity and calculate the parking fees according to passenger throughput and mode split forecast, as well as the leasing rate of the rental car facilities. Nevertheless, with the emerging AV transportation modes, the fundamentals could change. In the future, if financially more economical, passengers may send their AVs back to their house instead of parking at the airports. Rental car industry could follow completely new business model and may not need to lease space on airport property. In addition, the flexibility of driverless may encourage more car sharing and real-time ridesharing. Given the information of mode split and parking information of one hub airport in the U.S., this study applies statistical and simulation methods to estimate potential parking needs and provide insights for future airport landside terminal planning and design.