The introduction of shared autonomous vehicles into the transport system is suggested to bring significant impacts on traffic conditions, road safety and emissions, as well as overall reshaping travel behaviour. Compared with a private autonomous vehicle, a shared automated vehicle (SAV) is associated with different willingness-to-adopt and willingness-to-pay characteristics. An important aspect of future SAV adoption is the presence of other passengers in the SAV—often people unknown to the cotravellers. This study presents a cross-country exploration of user preferences and WTP calculations regarding mode choice between a private non-autonomous vehicle, and private and shared autonomous vehicles. To explore user preferences, the study launched a survey in seven European countries, including a stated-preference experiment of user choices. To model and quantify the effect of travel mode attributes and socio-demographic characteristics, the study employs a mixed logit model. The model results were the basis for calculating willingness-to-pay values for all countries and travel modes, and provide insight into the significant heterogeneous, gender-wise effect of cotravellers in the choice to use an SAV. The study results highlight the importance of analysis of the effect of SAV attributes and shared-ride conditions on the future acceptance and adoption rates of such services.

The technology that allows fully automated driving already exists and it may gradually enter the market over the forthcoming decades. Technology assimilation and automated vehicle acceptance in different countries is of high interest to many scholars, manufacturers, and policymakers worldwide. We model the mode choice between automated vehicles and conventional cars using a mixed multinomial logit heteroskedastic error component type model. Specifically, we capture preference heterogeneity assuming a continuous distribution across individuals. Different choice scenarios, based on respondents’ reported trip, were presented to respondents from six European countries: Cyprus, Hungary, Iceland, Montenegro, Slovenia, and the UK. We found that large reservations towards automated vehicles exist in all countries with 70% conventional private car choices, and 30% automated vehicles choices. We found that men, under the age of 60, with a high income who currently use private car, are more likely to be early adopters of automated vehicles. We found significant differences in automated vehicles acceptance in different countries. Individuals from Slovenia and Cyprus show higher automated vehicles acceptance while individuals from wealthier countries, UK, and Iceland, show more reservations towards them. Nontrading mode choice behaviors, value of travel time, and differences in model parameters among the different countries are discussed.

Autonomous vehicles are anticipated to play an important role on future mobility offering encouraging solutions to today’s transport problems. However, concerns of the public, which can affect the AVs’ uptake, are yet to be addressed. This study presents relevant findings of an online survey in eight European countries. First, 1639 responses were collected in Spring 2020 on people’s commute, preferred transport mode, willingness to use AVs and demographic details. Data was analyzed for the entire dataset and for vulnerable road users in particular. Results re-confirm the long-lasting discourse on the importance of safety on the acceptance of AVs. Spearman correlations show that age, gender, education level and number of household members have an impact on how people may be using or allowing their children to use the technology, e.g., with or without the presence of a human supervisor in the vehicle. Results on vulnerable road users show the same trend. The elderly would travel in AVs with the presence of a human supervisor. People with disabilities have the same proclivity, however their reactions were more conservative. Next to safety, reliability, affordability, cost, driving pleasure and household size may also impact the uptake of AVs and shall be considered when designing relevant policies.

Decision making in pavement management relies on current road condition and the condition forecast. In this study, it is shown that both the condition forecast as well as the condition measurements are affected by uncertainties as demonstrated in a literature review and in preliminary studies of road condition data. If these uncertainties are to be considered in forecast models, the need for a probabilistic approach is evident. In this study a methodology based on an Extended Kalman filter (EKF) was developed and tested, which allows combining both empirical models and collected condition data for the development of section-based pavement forecast models. The model has been validated to predict the condition state effectively for all selected condition indicators. All relevant steps for the condition forecast have been implemented into a prototype to evaluate the applicability of the methodology using collected data on road networks from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Societies continuously modify infrastructure to meet changing societal needs. To do so, multiple organisations represent the interests of a myriad of stakeholders within the infrastructure planning process. With diverse, even competing, perspectives, it is challenging to build consensus for infrastructure modifications, ultimately leading to society not meeting its needs optimally. To better meet societal needs, it is necessary to step back and evaluate the planning process as a whole, and determine how the process can be improved. For societies to review their infrastructure planning processes, this paper introduces for the first time the concept of the responsiveness of the process, which specifically goes beyond the well-studied planning of specific projects. Responsiveness is demonstrated as a concept that captures how quickly a society is able to modify infrastructure to meet societal needs. The concept is illustrated using an example of a fictive but realistic process for planning highways in Zurich Oberland, Switzerland. The changes in the infrastructure planning process responsiveness are evaluated for impact on societal needs using eight process variations and multiple future scenarios. The societal needs are quantified over time using owner and user costs considering uncertain road user numbers and uncertain delivery date.