What Does the Future of Automated Driving Mean for Public Transportation?

Abstract

Public transportation (PT) in combination with other active transportation modes is the key to sustainable cities and a solution against congestion and air pollution. Faced with increasing competition from the private sector and the upcoming technology of automated driving (AD), an acute challenge is ensuring a robust future perspective for PT. There is little research thus far on how AD might affect PT, how it addresses the challenges PT and municipalities face, and how the integration of such vehicles into existing systems can be achieved in the best possible way. In this article, we seek to address this research gap and present the results of a comparative study on stakeholder acceptance and requirements of AD in PT. We aim to find out and relate what various stakeholders (users, local authorities, and PT providers), consider relevant as regards AD in PT to derive hints for favorable applications of AD in PT, and discuss recommendable future development pathways for PT. We applied a qualitative research approach. The study entailed participatory survey instruments and was conducted in two German cities in 2017. Its two-step concept entailed a general discussion as well as identifying specific requirements in the context of three systematically developed use cases that are described in the paper. From the comparative results of the perspectives of users, providers, and municipalities we conclude how different use case types comply with the stakeholder perspectives and discuss what favorable use cases and pathways of PT could look like.

The determinants of acceptability and behavioural intention of automated vehicles – a review

“…Three studies focused on public transport users, exploring the expected characteristics of an automated shuttle service. They stressed the importance of registration to compensate for the lack of human presence, spatial equity of access (Stark et al, 2019), availability, convenience, flexibility, reliability (Nordhoff et al, 2019), comfort, sound environment, and sight (Christie et al, 2016;Zoellick et al, 2019b). Many characteristics of the vehicle have been studied, as well as driving parameters or communication between the AV and its passengers or its environment.…”

“…The first related to the vehicle itself and its deployment on the road. In this group, we identified the following concerns: the transition between manual and AVs (Hyde et al, 2017;López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019), the technical unreliability (Liljamo et al, 2018;Nishihori et al, 2017;Piao et al, 2016;Qu et al, 2019;Shin et al, 2019;Stark et al, 2019;Wahlström, 2017;Zmud & Sener, 2017), the poor performance in unexpected situations (Ackerman et al, 2019;López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019;Shabanpour et al, 2018a;Techer et al, 2019), the impact on traffic safety (Liljamo et al, 2018;Lee & Mirman, 2018;Lu et al, 2017) and the loss of driving skills (Nishihori et al, 2017;Pettigrew et al, 2018a;Zmud & Sener, 2017). The second group corresponded to ethical, legal and safety questions.…”

“…Privacy concerns: 15 papers deal with privacy concerns. Most participants were worried about privacy (Ledger et al, 2018;Panagiotopoulos & Dimitrakopoulos, 2018;Piao et al, 2016;Regan et al, 2017;Shabanpour et al, 2018a;Stark et al, 2019;Wicki & Bernauer, 2018). Roche-Cerasi (2019) showed that women were more concerned by loss of privacy than men.…”

“…The first concerns the psychosocial benefits. In this group, we identified the following benefits: comfort (Leicht et al, 2018;López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019;Pettigrew et al, 2018b;Ro & Ha, 2019), reduction of stress (López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019;Pettigrew et al, 2018b;Shabanpour et al, 2018a;Shin et al, 2019;Zmud & Sener, 2017), greater mobility with the possibility of doing something else during the journey (Nishihori et al, 2017;Pettigrew et al, 2018aPettigrew et al, , 2018bQu et al, 2019;Regan et al, 2017), enhancement of accessibility Ledger et al, 2018;Lee & Mirman, 2018;López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019;Nishihori et al, 2017;Pettigrew et al, 2018b;Regan et al, 2017;Ro & Ha, 2019;Roche-Cerasi, 2019;Shin et al, 2019;Zmud & Sener, 2017), and reduction of human errors, thus increasing safety (Leicht et al, 2018;López-Lambas & Alonso, 2019;Nielsen & Haustein, 2018;Pettigrew et al, 2018aPettigrew et al, , 2018bPiao et al, 2016;Regan et al, 2017;Ro & Ha, 2019;Shabanpour et al, 2018a;Shin et al, 2019;Stark et al, 2019;Wahlström, 2017;Zmud & Sener, 2017). The second group corresponded to environmental benefits.…”

Acceptable Automobility through Automated Driving. Insights into the Requirements for Different Mobility Configurations and an Evaluation of Suitable Use Cases

“…The authors ultimately provided a recommendation to pay more attention to the design of AD use cases. In a similar vein, Stark and Gade [20], taking public transport (PT) as an example, showed how the introduction of automated vehicles could either strengthen or weaken PT depending on their use cases and integration level into the overall transport system. The authors also discussed how the interests between potentials users and non-users, municipalities, and PT providers could be aligned and identified as more or less favorable use cases.…”