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The Unintended Social Consequences of Driverless Mobility Services: How Will Taxi Drivers and their Customers Be Affected?

Published: 31 July 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Social sustainability effects of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being discussed in a controversial manner. While there are numerous social benefits to be expected with the advent of AVs, some people will face drawbacks of this development. On the one hand for those who earn their living by driving and on the other hand for those customers who are reliant on human assistance to conduct a taxi ride. In order to better anticipate the size of this group and thus how great the threat to the taxi driver's profession is to be replaced, we analyze secondary data on taxi use in Germany. The results show that the proportion of mobility-impaired passengers is 9%, accounting for about 18% of all taxi trips, indicating that there is a small but significant number of customers whose needs probably cannot be met by AVs, and who will potentially continue to rely on human assistance in the future.

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Cited By

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  • (2022)Designing a Mobility Intelligence System for Decision-making with Shared Mobility Data2022 International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S)10.1109/ICT4S55073.2022.00017(53-64)Online publication date: Jun-2022
  • (2022)Vibrotactile guidance for trips with autonomous vehicles for persons with blindness, deafblindness, and deafnessTransportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives10.1016/j.trip.2022.10063015(100630)Online publication date: Sep-2022

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  1. The Unintended Social Consequences of Driverless Mobility Services: How Will Taxi Drivers and their Customers Be Affected?

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    ICT4S2020: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability
    June 2020
    349 pages
    ISBN:9781450375955
    DOI:10.1145/3401335
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    Published: 31 July 2020

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    Author Tags

    1. Jobs
    2. Mobility Impaired
    3. Shared Autonomous Vehicles
    4. Social Sustainability
    5. Taxi

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    • (2022)Designing a Mobility Intelligence System for Decision-making with Shared Mobility Data2022 International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S)10.1109/ICT4S55073.2022.00017(53-64)Online publication date: Jun-2022
    • (2022)Vibrotactile guidance for trips with autonomous vehicles for persons with blindness, deafblindness, and deafnessTransportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives10.1016/j.trip.2022.10063015(100630)Online publication date: Sep-2022

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