Mobility Acceptance Factors of an Automated Shuttle Bus Last-Mile Service

Abstract

<jats:p>The main interest of this paper is to analyze the mobility acceptance factors of an automated shuttle bus last-mile service. There is limited research on the passengers’ perception of security and safety of automated mobility, whereas prior research is mostly based on surveys interested in attitudes towards self-driving vehicles, without being linked to the experience. We, on the other hand, are interested in passengers’ feeling of security and safety, after taking a ride with an automated shuttle in an open urban environment. For studying this, we conducted an automated shuttle bus last-mile pilot during a four-month period in the city of Tallinn in late 2019. The method is a case study focusing on one city with several tools for data collection applied (surveys, interviews, document analysis). The pilot, open and free for everybody, attracted approximately 4000 passengers, out of which 4% responded to the online feedback survey. For studying the operational capacity, we had a panel interview with operators of the shuttle service, in addition to analyzing daily operational log files. The results indicate that passengers’ perceived feeling of security and safety onboard was remarkably high, after taking a ride (and lower without a ride, in a different control group). The bus was operated only if operational capacity was secured, thus having significant downtime in service due to environment, technology and traffic-related factors.</jats:p>

Deployment Scenarios for First/Last-Mile Operations With Driverless Shuttles Based on Literature Review and Stakeholder Survey

“…From the stakeholder survey we can conclude that, although the presence of an on-board operator is assumed to increase passengers perceived safety, a system without on-board operators is considered possible, both from a technology perspective and a passenger perspective. This is in line with the findings from [54], who investigated the mobility factors that affect the acceptance of driverless shuttles. According to their study, 80% of respondents would use an automated shuttle bus without an on-board operator in the immediate time or in case of a future application.…”

“…Therefore, we decided to focus on the research needs in terms of operational and integration strategies, taking into account the impacts that this new service might have on public transport services. In support of this, the findings from [54] suggest that the current threats to a successful driverless shuttle system are not so much related to passengers' willingness to use but rather to technological and operational challenges, with the open question of how to integrate this feeder transit service in the existing urban mobility.…”

Transition towards Smart City: The Case of Tallinn

“…Several interviewees emphasized the need to map the "flagship SC projects", representing the priorities of the city government, as opposed to the current situation where the city has a more passive part as a partner invited to participate in the projects initiated by other stakeholders. Thus far, Tallinn has been mainly involved in mobility-related ones as an invited partner [51,52] from the perspective of SC. One of the limitations of this paper is that there are not yet many materials about the implementation process of the Tallinn 2035 strategy as it is still in its very early stages.…”

Users’ Acceptance of Connected and Automated Shuttles for Tourism Purposes: A Survey Study

“…The link to the on-line questionnaire was sent to 90,488 students and academic and administrative staff and the response rate was 3%, already cleaned by ambiguous and invalid responses. The response rate was not particularly high, although values below 10% are common in online surveys [52,53], particularly if-as in this case-there are no incentives for respondents to fill in the questionnaire and the response burden is significant [54]. The final sample consists of 2705 respondents, of which 64% were students.…”