Equity-Conscious Design of Dedicated Infrastructure for Autonomous Vehicles Using a Fuzzy Programming Model

During the early stages of autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption, traditional human-driven vehicles (HVs) and AVs will share urban roads—potentially diminishing the capacity benefits of AVs; thus, dedicated infrastructure strategies, such as AV-exclusive lanes and AV/Toll (AVT) lanes, have been proposed in the literature. While these approaches enhance overall travel efficiency in mixed traffic networks, they often neglect social equity concerns. In particular, the benefits of dedicated infrastructure are largely felt by AV users, while HV users experience a disproportionate increase in equilibrium travel time, negatively impacting social equity. This study optimizes AVT lane toll rates to balance efficiency and equity, ensuring a fair distribution of transportation impacts across user groups. New measurement formulas are introduced to quantify spatial and social equity based on disparities in generalized equilibrium travel costs across different origin–destination pairs and travel modes after an AVT tolling scheme. An equitable AVT tolling model, grounded in fuzzy utility theory, is developed, and a numerical example demonstrates its effectiveness in addressing spatial and social equity concerns in AVT lane tolling contexts.