Ride-Sharing in an Autonomous Future

Abstract

Changing mobility Mobility is one of the fundamentals of our society and for the first time since the introduction of the automobile in the 1900s, we face a disruptive change in our mobility ecosystem. The rise of autonomous technology will allow us to get from a to b while being able to do other activities on the go. Challenges in change Although autonomous mobility will go hand in hand with many benefits, we still have challenges to overcome if we want to implement autonomous vehicles to their fullest potential. If we want to get rid of all the mobility problems we have today, such as congestion, traffic accidents, air pollution and parking limitations, autonomous vehicle rides should be shared. Ride-sharing will allow a larger part of our population to join the autonomous revolution, contributing to Ford’s goal to democratize mobility and increase the ease and speed of implementation in society. Ride-sharing For this to succeed, it is essential to understand peoples motivations to share (or not share) rides. Today’s mobility landscape in San Francisco allowed me to research current ride-sharing concepts. Here I experienced ride-sharing myself and interviewed relevant actors in the servicescape, to find that interpersonal contact is a substantial differentiator in the ride experience. Another main finding revolves around the drivers, whom we are trying to eliminate as we are moving towards an autonomous future. The roles the drivers take on besides enabling transport, bring essential values to the user experience. Scope After gathering extensive user insights during field research in San Francisco and learning about the potential positive effects of AV ride-sharing, I scoped the project to the daily commute in the Netherlands. This use case holds excellent potential for business, but more importantly, has the duration and frequency to make it worth to invest in the interpersonal relations amongst users. As well as diminishing the negative effects of human-driven vehciles (HDVs) on the daily commute in society. Acting-out By co-creating and acting-out shared concepts for the daily commute, I further explored the values and desires of future users. This has led to many insights, design qualities and a lot of funny moments. The raw insights are assembled in the additional deliverable: Session Booklet. The central findings are taken to the synthesis phase. Synthesis To bring all these insights together and make them communicable to Ford, this thesis holds multiple deliverables. Starting with the following vision statement: Autonomous Vehicle rides should be shared to maximally utilise the potential AVs have to offer to society. To successfully design shared AV rides for the daily commute, the service provider should gain individual insights to facilitate a common understanding amongst co-riders & provide a sense of control for each user. This vision is visualized in a communicative drawing, showing a little bit, about a lot information. Since the user insights go much deeper than what can be shown in the drawing, a set of criteria for designing shared AV rides for the daily commute, is created too, showing a lot about a little bit. The criteria are accompanied with a user narrative. This narrative shows how users will experience their daily commute in an AV ride-sharing service, that is designed accordingly.