Fleets of shared, on-demand, self-driving cars could be the death knell for parking fees, and that’s forcing cities, airports, and the municipal bond industry to devise new ways to extract revenue before it’s too late.
The future of transportation in metropolitan areas won’t be in individually owned cars, but rather in fleet-based, electric, and autonomous ones, planners and financial analysts told Bloomberg Government. It’s a trend with broad city-planning implications, from designing parking garages to tracking traffic patterns at airports.
Credit-rating agencies like Moody’s Corp. and S&P Global Inc. are closely watching how bond issuers forecast the consequences of falling income due to self-driving technology produced by Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, Tesla Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and others.
“There is going to be disruption,” Kurt Forsgren, U.S. public finance sector leader for S&P Global, told Bloomberg Government. “The question is, ‘At what rate?’”
Bloomberg Government
Shaun Courtney
April 26, 2018