Sharing Rides in Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand-Systems – Acceptability, Information Needs and Incentive Systems

The penetration of autonomous vehicles of level 5 will be a turning point for mobility. Depending on the scenario traffic will either dramatically rise or significantly decrease. Raising the occupancy rate of autonomous mobility-on-demand-systems by ridesharing is an essential prerequisite for future sustainable mobility. Yet, sharing rides with strangers in driverless vehicles might cause acceptance problems concerning privacy and safety issues, especially due to flexible routing. In how far do travel time changes and a detour due to fellow travellers affect the willingness to use shared autonomous mobility-on-demand-systems? Could a pricing system be used to incentivize sharing rides? Which information about fellow travellers is suitable to increase the acceptability of sharing rides? The contribution summarizes the findings of two stated choice experiments (N = 150 and N = 154). The results highlight the importance of a pricing system that is adjustable to travel time and detour. The willingness to share rides increases when more information about fellow passengers is presented. The contribution adds to the limited empirical findings by a first explorative step to understand human choice behaviour in these complex and dynamic systems and provides concrete recommendations for the user-centred design