Shared ownership and ridership of driverless cars in Edinburgh

The research explores the attitudes towards sharing driverless cars (DC) among Edinburgh residents. DC Use is characterised by two dimensions: ownership and ridership. The personal mobility landscape has the potential to experience a paradigm shift over the coming decades due to the advent of level 5 DC, allowing people to enjoy hassle-free travel independent of the ability to drive. Therefore, DC use may generate more trips and miles travelled, aggravating further congestion and emissions, reducing the viability of traditional public transport services and people's propensity to walk and cycle. The shared use of DC could increase vehicle usage efficiency, make mobility more sustainable and affordable, and make cities more liveable. Existing research has investigated the impact of shared DC use on travel behaviour through simulations and choice experiments. These studies examined shared ownership and ridership separately. Few studies investigated the impact of travelling with family members and strangers of mobility choice; no attention is paid to household dynamics. To fill these gaps, the present study (a) identifies the propensities to share ownership and ridership of DC in different travelling scenarios; (b) analyses the impact of current travel behaviour socio-economic characteristics on such propensities; (c) jointly considers personality traits and social norms attitudes as factors explaining shared use of DC. The scenarios consider three shared DC ownership models (private DC, partially owned DC, driverless taxis) and three shared DC ridership models (riding alone, with close contacts, with strangers), with and without the presence of family members. Regular and occasional trips are investigated. Data is collected through an online questionnaire with 500 respondents, three-quarters of whom are of working age and owning a car. The questions are based on a literature review and interviews with mobility experts. Four areas are covered: current carsharing and ridesharing attitudes; determinants of attitudes towards carsharing and ridesharing; likelihood of adopting different DC ownership and ridership models; personality traits, social norms, and socio-demographic characteristics. Classes of carsharing and ridesharing behaviour are identified using cluster analyses. Discrete choice models are estimated to explain respondents' propensity for selected DC shared ownership and ridership scenarios, using the sharing behaviour, personality, social norms, and socio-demographic characteristics as determinants. Frequent household-car users are inclined to adopt private DC, whereas highly educated respondents older than 55 are less inclined to private DC. Higher-earners, younger-aged, cooperative and resource-sharing behaviour are significant determinants of driverless taxi use. City-centre dwelling, cooperative millennials are more willing to share DC with a stranger. People's reluctance to share trips with strangers is a crucial barrier to shared DC use. Privacy-preserving DC design can help people feel safer in sharing with a stranger. Public transport integration with DC should be investigated to promote further the shared use of DC.