The study looks at the effect AVs will have on tourism, including the effect they will have on taxis.

A new study from the University of Surrey and the University of Oxford takes a closer look at how autonomous vehicles (AV) will impact the future of urban tourism.

People have mixed feelings about AVs with some citing fears over their safety, while others look forward to relaxing during their commutes. This study focuses on the potential advantages and disadvantages of AVs on tourism, specifically.

In terms of advantages, the study determined that AVs would reduce traffic congestion and emissions, improve foreign car hire processes, reduce parking requirements and lead to cheaper taxi fares. The study also suggests that hotels and restaurants could take advantage of AVs with dining cars or by enabling passengers to sleep in cars while driving to a destination.

However, the drawbacks, according to the study, might include an increased dependency on cars, which leads to greater urban sprawl, forcing people to spend more time in cars. AVs would also reduce the demand for train travel, coach tours, public transport and taxis, resulting in job losses in those sectors.

Professor Scott Cohen, Head of Tourism and Transport at Surrey's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, said, "This groundbreaking study will benefit urban planners, policymakers and the tourism and hospitality industries, who will face a range of threats and opportunities as AVs begin to reach the mass market in the coming decade.

"The visitor economy will be gradually transformed if AVs become fully automated and mainstream, leading to a future where hordes of small AVs could congest urban attractions, hop-on hop-off city bus tours may go out of business altogether, motorways between cities could fill at night with slow-moving AVs carrying sleeping occupants and commercial sex in moving AVs becomes a growing phenomenon."

The study was published in Annals of Tourism Research.