WEF's impact study used a complex agent-based simulation of traffic and "vehicle-to-vehicle interaction" in downtown Boston to arrive at these numbers, including data from roughly two million daily passenger vehicle trips.
AUTONOMOUS TRAFFIC JAMS. But despite the optimism about alleviating Boston's overall traffic woes, the traffic simulation assumed a 20 percent drop in "personal-car trips, which become mobility-on-demand trips" — think Uber, and Waymo taxi rides. And that may sound pretty optimistic, but with decreasing car sales and a booming ride-hailing industry, it's not much of a stretch. Yet 40 percent of trips would still rely on personal vehicles, clogging up low-capacity arteries, and the downtown core. As for mass-transit, the simulation assumed the behavior of commuters wouldn't change.