Passenger's subjective traffic safety, in-vehicle security and emergency management in the driverless shuttle bus in Finland

Arto O. Salonen

Transport Policy, 2018, vol. 61, issue C, 106-110

Abstract: Mobility services are evolving globally. Driverless public transport can be a game-changer for urban mobility. However, empirical evidence from the point of user experiences is lacking. A customer's sense of safety and security has a significant influence on public transport acceptance. This case study focuses on driverless shuttle bus passengers' subjective experiences of (a) traffic safety, (b) in-vehicle security, and (c) emergency management compared to the conventional bus. Data were collected through interviews from informants that travelled by driverless shuttle busses in the City of Vantaa, Finland in summer 2015. A total of 19,021 passengers travelled by 3,962 km autonomous buses on a specific route. The sample of 197 informants was analysed by quantitative methods. Informants assessed perception of traffic safety to be better in the driverless shuttle bus than in a conventional bus with a driver. However, they were lacking personal in-vehicle security. 64 per cent of passengers answered that sense of in-vehicle security in the driverless shuttle bus was worse or much worse than in the conventional bus. There was a significant difference between women and men when they evaluated their subjective sense of security on board F(1, 195) = 8.196, p < 0.001. Men assessed their experiences of traffic safety, in-vehicle security and emergency management to be overall better than those of women. In order to mainstream the use of driverless shuttle buses, for example as a part of a transport chain, traffic safety is not a problem. Instead, a passenger's sense of security on board should be increased. This is the case especially with female passengers.

Keywords: Driverless shuttle bus; Autonomous vehicle; Public transport; User experiences; In-vehicle security; Traffic safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X1730286X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:61:y:2018:i:c:p:106-110

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2017.10.011

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().