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Today we’re talking about autonomous taxis, also called robo taxis, and how they’re going to revolutionize real estate.

When people think about autonomous vehicles, they usually think about transportation. They think about convenience, safety, maybe labor disruption. Think about all of those folks driving for Uber who will be out of work. But from a real estate perspective, the more important question is this: what happens to the built environment when the it makes more sense from a convenience and an economic perspective to call for a robot-taxi instead of owning a car.

For the past hundred years, we’ve designed cities, apartment buildings, shopping centers, office properties, and even single-family homes around the assumption that every household needs one or more private vehicles sitting still most of the day.

That assumption is about to be challenged.

Today, most privately owned cars are parked roughly 95 percent of the time. They are extraordinarily expensive assets with very low utilization. Autonomous taxis flip that model on its head. A shared vehicle can serve many riders in sequence throughout the day. The result is higher utilization per vehicle, fewer idle hours, and a materially lower need for parking at the point of destination.

Now, does that mean fewer vehicles on the road? Not necessarily, at least not right away. In fact, in some markets you may still see a similar number of vehicles circulating, especially during peak commuting hours. But even if the number of vehicles on the road doesn’t decline dramatically, the number of parked vehicles absolutely will.

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How Robo Taxis Will Change Real Estate Design