Shared Autonomous Cargo Bike Fleets – a Better Solution for Future Mobility Than Shared Autonomous Car Fleets?

The societal mission of mitigating air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are forcing urban agglomerations worldwide strongly greening their urban transportation systems. The global megatrend of urbanization aggravates those challenges by steadily increasing the demand for urban movements of people and goods. Shared autonomous fleets of predominantly electrical powered cars are heavily discussed and put forward as promising solution. On the one hand, they shall reduce emissions through the electric powertrain and reduce congestions by allowing more efficient use of each car and on the other hand strongly improve traffic flows through better management and enhanced communication between cars. Although the promise of shared autonomous car fleets seems very straightforward, the positive effects are challenged by recent studies. Fraedrich et al. (2017) and Hörl et al. (2019) clearly show, that such mobility services increase the mileage travelled in urban agglomerations. This may lead to increased congestions and energy consumption. Street designs are likely to reinforce the functional separation of traffic flows to facilitate efficiency gains of autonomous driving (Millard-Ball, 2016). By doing so, multi-usage of streets, which is a prerequisite of urban liveability, is mitigated. Taking those backsides of shared autonomous car fleets, this paper is proposing the new approach of shared autonomous cargo bike fleets integrated into public transport systems. Firstly, the concept of next generation bike sharing and its special on-demand function in organizational and technical detail is outlined. Following the paper will elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of the vehicles, vehicle safety, operation principles, mobility patterns addressed and perceived effects on traffic in contrast to shared autonomous car fleets. Further the authors investigated possible factors relevant for the acceptability of an autonomous bike system, by means of structured focus group discussions and experiments with possible users and passer-by s. The results clearly demonstrate that shared autonomous cargo bike fleets are a vital alternative to shared autonomous car fleets in terms of emissions, space occupancy and public acceptability. However, some barriers in vehicle design, autonomous driving behaviour and mobility service need to be addressed in future work.

• Record URL:
  https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-2020
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract used by permission of Association for European Transport.
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • Assmann, Tom
  • Matthies, Ellen
  • Gehlmann, Franziska
  • Schmidt, Stephan
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference 2020
  • Date: 2020-9-9 to 2020-9-11
• Publication Date: 2020

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference 2020

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acceptance; Autonomous vehicles; Bicycles; Courier service; Electric vehicles; Focus groups; Mobility; Public transit; Shared mobility; Urban transportation; Vehicle fleets
• Subject Areas: Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01768531
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 26 2021 5:47PM