Accessible autonomous transportation and services: a focus group study

Abstract

Purpose

Existing automated vehicle transportation guidelines and regulations have minimal guidance to address the specific needs of people with disabilities. Accessibility should be at the forefront to increase autonomy and independence for people with disabilities. The purpose of this research is to better understand potential facilitators and barriers to using accessible autonomous transportation.

Methods

Focus groups were conducted with key stakeholders derived from people with disabilities (n = 5), travel companions/caregivers (n = 5), and transportation experts or designers (n = 11).

Results

The themes include describing stakeholder perceptions across all three groups by identified themes: autonomous vehicle assistive technology, autonomy vs automation, cost, infrastructure, safety & liability, design challenges, and potential impact.

Conclusion

Specific gaps and needs were identified regarding barriers and facilitators for transportation accessibility and evidence-based guidance. These specific gaps can help to formulate design criteria for the communication between, the interior and exterior of accessible autonomous vehicles.

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

• Accessible and affordable autonomous transportation may increase mobility and the autonomy of people with disabilities to travel spontaneously.

• Autonomous vehicles and services should be designed to accommodate various types of disabilities such as multimodal and multilingual device communication.

• Safety and liability regulatory protocols need to be developed for incidents and emergencies.

• Wheelchair user, especially people who use powered devices, would need systems for ingress/egress, docking, and occupant restraints.

Keywords:

• Adaptive driving
• autonomous vehicles
• accessible travel
• caregivers
• accessible transportation service providers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The contents of this paper do not represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government. This research was supported by the Human Engineering Research Laboratories of the University of Pittsburgh and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. This work was funded by the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Craig H. Nielsen Spinal Foundation, and the US Department of Transport UTC (Grant #69A3552047140).