RT6 - Konstanze Winter - Flexible future mobility and shared automation

Picture this: a future in which shared autonomous vehicles are run by public agencies, providing equitable transport to address a multitude of travel needs in a city decoupled from car ownership. In this episode of Researching Transit, Konstanze Winter ponders this scenario and the big what-ifs it poses. Konstanze guides us through many of the pointy unknowns of automation - such as how to avoid the transformation of shared public space into parking lots for empty vehicles. “We can learn from other systems, but there’s the difference that automated vehicles can replace themselves” She sets the scene by discussing the multitude of possible technological, individual choices and policy scenarios at play. These complex interactions are being tackled by cities and researchers, trying to guide automation down a path of equity and accessibility. However, with so many questions and no lived experience of automation, how can we really anticipate the outcomes of new technology? “We cannot rely on a single study. We have to combine all studies to get a holistic picture across borders, across scenarios and across specifications.” Konstanze’s research assumes we are more likely to see shared automated vehicles than privately owned ones in our lifetime. Centrally deployed services overcome many of the barriers to automated vehicle adoption, including (1) high investment costs (2) efficient redeployment across multiple users and (3) a market segment of typical tech-savvy early adopters, who are not interested in owning a vehicle. Listen in to hear more about the potential for shared automated vehicles to provide more flexibility in our future transport network. Read Konstanze and her colleagues' published research on shared automation: Winter, K, Cats, O, Martens, K & van Arem, B 2020, 'Relocating shared automated vehicles under parking constraints: assessing the impact of different strategies for on-street parking', Transportation, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-020-10116-w. Winter, K, Cats, O, Martens, K & van Arem, B 'Identifying user classes for shared and automated mobility services', European Transport Research Review, vol. 12, no. 36, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-020-00420-y. More on the levels of driving automation (Konstanze’s research focuses on level 4 and 5): https://blog.ansi.org/2018/09/sae-levels-driving-automation-j-3016-2018/#gref More on urban parking policies and why they work: D.Shoup (2018): “Parking and the City”. New York, NY: Routledge More on why parking self-driving vehicles can be game-changer: E. Guerra & E.A. Morris (2018): Cities, Automation, and the Self-parking Elephant in the Room. Planning Theory & Practice, 19:2, 291-297 Konstanze Winter recently complete her PhD at TU Delft’s Smart Public Transport Lab. Her work is bundled in her thesis: M.K.E. Winter (2020): “Providing Public Transport by Self-Driving Vehicles – User Preferences, Fleet Operation, and Parking Management” (Doctoral dissertation). Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands. She can be contacted at linkedin.com/in/konstanzewinter. Music from this episode is from https://www.purple-planet.com