Towards inclusivity of autonomous mobility services: access needs of people at risk of exclusion

Abstract

Autonomous mobility services promise to complement traditional public transport by offering travellers both greater temporal and spatial flexibility. One key to the use of these services are digital journey planners for booking, payment, and route descriptions. Because these journey planners typically require access to smartphones as well as the ability to interact with them, both people with low digital literacy and people with disabilities run the risk of being excluded from using certain forms of autonomous mobility services. Aiming to contribute to a more inclusive design of autonomous mobility services, this paper investigates the access needs of a) people not using a smartphone and b) people with different types of disabilities regarding the use of autonomous shuttles. We analysed qualitative data from questionnaires (smartphone non-users: N = 43; disabled users: N = 123), interviews (smartphone non-users: N = 4), and workshops with Human Factors professionals (smartphone non-users: N = 9). For smartphone non-users, the results show that an adjusted service design that does not require a mobile app is crucial, e.g. by allowing the advance planning of trips and the use of existing transport infrastructure for booking and identifying pick-up locations. For disabled users, accessibility requirements predominantly addressed the interaction with the mobile app and the autonomous vehicle itself, e.g. through both visual and auditory channels. The divergence of identified access needs in both groups highlights the importance of engaging people at risk of exclusion early in the design process of autonomous mobility services for a greater degree of inclusion.