Smart Transportation

AI Enabled Mobility and Autonomous Driving

Guido Dartmann, Anke Schmeink, Volker Lücken, Houbing Song, Martina Ziefle, Giovanni Prestiflippo, Guido Dartmann, Anke Schmeink, Volker Lücken, Houbing Song, Martina Ziefle, Giovanni Prestiflippo

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000405651
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Transporte e ingeniería automovilísticos

The book provides a broad overview of the challenges and recent developments in the field of smart mobility and transportation, including technical, algorithmic and social aspects of smart mobility and transportation. It reviews new ideas for services and platforms for future mobility. New concepts of artificial intelligence and the implementation in new hardware architecture are discussed. In the context of artificial intelligence, new challenges of machine learning for autonomous vehicles and fleets are investigated. The book also investigates human factors and social questions of future mobility concepts.

The goal of this book is to provide a holistic approach towards smart transportation. The book reviews new technologies such as the cloud, machine learning and communication for fully atomatized transport, catering to the needs of citizens. This will lead to complete change of concepts in transportion.

CHAPTER
1
Social Acceptance of Autonomous Driving – The Importance of Public Discourse and Citizen Participation

Teresa Brell¹, Ralf Philipsen²,Hannah Biermann² and Martina Ziefle²*

¹ umlaut Solutions, Aachen, Germany

² Chair of Communication Science, Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

^*Corresponding author: [email protected]

1.1 Introduction – Automated Driving: Aims, Status Quo, Challenges

The use of autonomous vehicles for automated city centers enables new, innovative mobility solutions, which combine elements of private and public local passenger transport and enables users to achieve a high degree of mobility. In order to fully exploit the potential of autonomous vehicles for sustainable urban mobility and for a successful and sustainable rollout it is important to understand the requirements of new mobility solutions, their economic, legal and social challenges and also to reflect on which contexts the implementation of a new technology is seen as a threat or perceived as an enhancement.

Mobility is in a state of constant change because the technical possibilities are increasing and the fast paced development of technology in the mobility sector, especially in road traffic, opens up new ways to travel. These possibilities can bring both benefits and risks. On the one hand traffic infrastructure, vehicles and pedestrians offer new possibilities to intervene in and observe critical situations through their connection via driver assistance systems [1]. At the status quo today, connectivity supports a way to significantly improve road safety by integrating all traffic participants [2]. Further, users understand that automated driving increases safety in traffic. Automatic driving functions for example allow cognitive relief on longer journeys, which is particularly useful for older drivers [3, 4, 5].

On the other hand, the possibility of gaining valuable data and information may encourage the ill-intended tracking of users and this collected shared information might lead to concerns from potential users. The possible loss of control may result in serious privacy and trust issues [5, 6]. Additionally, uncertainty is fueled by negative press, e.g. the first Tesla crash in 2016 and the latest in early 2019, which caused great insecurity among drivers and led to questions about the dangers and consequences of autonomous driving [7, 8].

Thus, the innovation management of introducing new technologies is often a lengthy process, accompanied by social and societal skepticism [9. 10]. This is particularly true in the case of complex and fundamentally new technology developments, which from a societal point of view, may have undeniable advantages, but at the same time trigger basic fears among users, e.g. loss of control, outside interference and loss of responsibility [11, 12], as it is in the case of automated or autonomous driving. For long experienced (professional) drivers, autonomous vehicle technologies might also be seen as a violation of tradition, because for the first time, the car is in control and not the driver [13], who experiences a sense of loss of control and has a fear of being controlled by the technology [14, 15], This is an important and critical point since studies have shown that rearranging the control might be a necessary and important step for the reduction of road accidents, because the main reason for accidents in traffic is the human driver [16]. Hence, trust in and acceptance of V2X-technology and autonomous driving is a significant factor for a successful rollout of autonomous driving though insufficiently explored so far [17, 18], In order to address possible acceptance problems in a systematic way and to communicate acceptance-relevant topics in time, it is necessary to identify diem first [19].

But fundamental changes are not possible without recognizing the needs, emotions and requirements of the targeted users, and without including them in the transformation process [20, 21]. The transition to autonomous traffic will also be a challenging process: Driving a car is perceived as a deeply rooted part of social life (at least in the western world) and definitely enhances perceived social esteem [22, 23]. That is why introducing autonomous driving into road traffic is a sensitive and at the same time exciting step. Driving has an emotional value, which is why autonomous driving could be seen as a violation of tradition: the vehicle (or the infrastructure) would control the ride instead of the driver, who now has the role of a passenger. Not only the feeling of loss of control but also the fear of being controlled by the technology may come up [24].

Not only in the context of autonomous driving and the required infrastructure but also in other contexts (such as energy infrastructure) the involvement of users is an important and impactful choice. With the turn towards many large-scale projects in the context of e.g. renewable energies and novel mobility infrastructure, social acceptance of the infrastructure needed to provide successful rollouts of technological infrastructure in urban environments evolved as a major topic within a large strand of research.

Evidently, without adequate understanding and support by the communities, the cities and the public, it will be difficult if not impossible to meet the societal challenges of energy needs as well as the changes in the mobility sector and to put the necessary infrastructure into practice [25,27,27].

Taking all given information into account, the current work sets two focuses: One is to stress the importance of social acceptance for the successful innovation management of autonomous vehicles. The second focus is to illustrate one specific measure to show a practical example of citizen's science in Aachen: The citizens' dialogue of the project APEROL.

This work concludes with the generalizability and transferability of the procedure and the results to other mobility areas.

1.2 Social Acceptance – Its Role for and the Inclusion of Potential Users

Social acceptance focuses on the approval, positive reception, and sustainable implementation of (novel) technologies [28]. Within academic research, thus, individual usage motives, but also possible barriers are explored in order to shed light on the attitudes and public opinions towards the technology. Research revealed that the perceived risk of a novel technology and the probability of non-acceptance or even protest are inversely related to the familiarity and the prevailing information depth about a certain technology [15, 18]. In addition, there is evidence that personality factors (risk avoidance, innovation openness) and demographic factors (age, gender, technology generation) impact the risk perceptions associated with the integration of those technologies [27, 29].

In the last few decades, a rich knowledge base about potential acceptance drivers and resistance patterns has developed in academic research in many technical contexts [e.g. 30,27]. Characteristically, however, there is an enormous gap on how to practically use acceptance knowledge in the rollout process: technical planners as well as people in charge in the communities often do not know how to identify acceptance factors and if so, when to integrate the public in the planning process [31]. When it comes to the integration of the public in the technology acceptance discussion, practical planners typically face two very contradicting positions. The first is the citizens' claim for the integration into the planning process. The justification of this claim is the argument that the public is the one that is confronted with infrastructure decisions and technological changes in the end and should thus be involved in the decision-making. The second position is typically used by experts (technical, political, legal) arguing that laypeople cannot make reasonable and reliable decisions due to their limited domain knowledge [32]. Also, it is a widespread prejudice that open discussions about a novel technology naturally lead to protest or disapproval – at least in early stages of the developmental process of the technology [26].

A further misunderstanding is that acceptance more or less refers to the mere convincing of the public at the very end of the planning and implementation process. This way, acceptance is used as a kind of top-down legitimation, a mere information act, without really asking the public about their perspectives. This engineering or marketing interpretation of acceptance is, however, not necessarily successful, as can be seen by the increasing number of public protests in the energy and mobility context, but also by the decreasing trust in the credibility and reliability of decision makers and public authorities [27, 33, 34].

From a social science point of view, acceptance should be treated, understood, and used differently. The approach should focus on the understanding of the perceptions of benefits and barriers of novel technologies in order to develop individually tailored information or communication strategies and integrate the user in technology development [32]. In this context, the public can take on different roles. According to [35], "public communication," "public consultation," and "public participation" are to be distinguished. In all forms, the public is informed by the technical planners. However, only the participation form allows all stakeholders and persons involved to be an active part in the planning process Thus, to make use of public acceptance knowledge, it is essential to

1. Identify stages in the development cycle whe...