Social and economic impacts of Autonomous Shuttles for Collective Transport: an in- depth benchmark study

Abstract

International audience; Most of current managerial studies on Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) focus on future social and economic impacts of privately-owned AVs. In contrast, the present study aimed on carrying out an in-depth benchmark on successful experimentations with Autonomous Shuttles for Collective Transport (ASCTs), identifying the most relevant social and economic findings as well as understanding how such results may contribute to future projects and trials. The research was designed as an in-depth qualitative benchmark of exploratory and descriptive nature on three selected European projects with ASCTs: CityMobil2, GATEway, SHOJOA. Results mainly focused on the trials' social aspects (e.g., user acceptance, trust, willingness to use and, shuttles' interactions with mixed-traffic). Economic impacts were not widely disclosed and/or explored (results were mainly centered on users' willingness to pay and potential to reduce fares). Thereby, we advocate that economic aspects shall not be considered as "ceteris paribus" while measuring user acceptance. From the perspective of social sciences, the study sheds light into what is currently being evaluated on ASCTs' trials. Results are relevant for future ASCTs projects to focus on neglected aspects and also to improve upon the trials' successful results in a sense that, to date, no current studies were found aiming to understand and evaluate the social and economic impacts of ASCTs deployments.