Study on the importance of stewards in shared autonomous vehicles

Study on the importance of stewards in shared autonomous vehicles

Ambadi Omanakuttannair, N.K. (TU Delft Civil Engineering and Geosciences)

Zubin, I. (mentor)
van Binsbergen, A.J. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

2020-11-20

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAV) is coming up as an effective and sustainable first and last mile mobility solution that can integrate itself well into the existing transport network. Currently it is mandatory to have an on-board steward in the SAV. The technology has been maturing to have completely autonomous vehicles without the need of steward on-board. However, there are many obstacles, some of which are addressed in the study; namely perceived safety, emergency control, accessibility for elderly population, infrastructural modifications, added vehicle features required, additional training required for stewards and technological awareness. The effect of these factors on different scenarios formulated are done using a multi-actor multi criteria analysis (MAMCA). The actors chosen for the analysis are the road authority and the public transport operator. The analysis show that the scenarios with stewards obtain a better score than the scenarios without, which is expected. As for the scenarios without stewards, the one with the highest score is when the SAV runs on dedicated infrastructure with a fixed schedule for both the actors. In addition, a questionnaire study is done to gather the opinion of stewards as well. The questionnaire results show that extra training is indeed required for the stewards to manage any emergency situations. Moreover, the stewards report that the frequency of such emergency situations is high and that the technology has a long way to go for SAVs to function without stewards on-board. The questionnaire results along with the analysis provides good insight into the current situation and for the future.

SAV
Autonomous vehicles
Steward
MCA

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:11efd8a3-5229-4cd5-bf1a-abc974846fb2

Student theses

student report

© 2020 N.K. Ambadi Omanakuttannair