Users' preferences towards automated road public transport: results from European surveys

Collective automated road transport systems (ARTS) are the subject of current research in Europe. The paper reports on the results of the investigations about users' attitudes towards ARTS and conventional buses that have been carried out in twelve cities where the implementation of an ARTS service is being planned within the Citymobil2 project. A common stated preference questionnaire has been used. The econometric analysis has been based on the estimation of a logit model which has considered the choice for two alternatives: ARTS and minibus. The observed attributes are: waiting time, riding time and fare. Of particular interest, is the estimation of the alternative specific constant (ASC) of the ARTS, because this represents the mean of all the unobserved attributes of the automated system that affect the choice. With a common specification of the systematic utilities of ARTS and minibus, the observed attributes being the same, a positive value of the ASC is indicative of a relatively higher preference for the ARTS. The results show a relatively higher preference for ARTS across the cities where the ARTS is implemented inside a major facility. In other application contexts, commonalities in attitudes across cities are not found. The impacts on attitudes of the socio-economic attributes of the users are heterogeneous across cities. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.