The Road Ahead: Acceptance of Public Autonomous Shuttles

What is it about?

Autonomous shuttles are robotic vehicles that sense their surroundings and location and operate without a human driver. This paper explores the factors that affect people’s willingness to use driverless shuttles for public transportation and how likely they are to recommend them to others. The study surveyed 318 potential users in a real-life setting where more than 6,000 vehicles and almost 30,000 people circulate daily. The results show that the perception of the shuttle's performance, how easy it is to use, how enjoyable the riding experience is, and how much trust people have in the technology all influence potential passengers’ intention to board a public autonomous bus. The study also explains the connection between people's usage intention and their likelihood to talk about these robotic vehicles with others.

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Photo by Ankit Manoharan on Unsplash

Photo by Ankit Manoharan on Unsplash

Why is it important?

While extensive research has been conducted on private self-driving cars, the number of studies that explore the adoption of public autonomous buses is comparatively small, and most of them focus on pilot tests or experimental settings rather than on autonomous buses that run as regular public transport lines. The introduction of public self-driving shuttles offers several benefits, including alleviating traffic congestion, lowering the demand for parking space, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and noise pollution, and providing effective transportation solutions for areas underserved by conventional buses. This research provides practical recommendations to stakeholders involved with the sustainable development of transportation, which the authors organize around three aspects: shuttle service design, marketing tactics and word-of-mouth monitoring.