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.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.