Influence of Individual Perceptions on the Decision to Adopt Automated Bus Services

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper did a survey to investigate public’s perceptions of the current automated bus service in Barkabystaden. In this survey, the respondents needed to answer some related question about the automated bus, like speed, safety, reliability etc.

Basically, the idea of this survey is interesting, since automated services are accepted by the public or not is quite important for automation technology including self driving vehicles, automated bus etc. The novelty of the paper is that some of the respondents have the experience of the automated regular public transport. However, "although 99.2% of the participants are aware of the existence of the automated bus service in Barkabystaden, only about 20% had used the system", which indicted the respondents were not familiar with the automated bud in their city. I thought the first thing we need to know is why they don't want to try the auto bus, but this paper didn't show this. Since the respondents were not familiar with the system, most usages are just for fun, the survey result didn't show much difference with other work.

I thought the survey should to find in which case the respondents will choose the auto bus, and which part prevent them to try the bus.

Author Response

Basically, the idea of this survey is interesting, since automated services are accepted by the public or not is quite important for automation technology including self driving vehicles, automated bus etc. The novelty of the paper is that some of the respondents have the experience of the automated regular public transport. However, "although 99.2% of the participants are aware of the existence of the automated bus service in Barkabystaden, only about 20% had used the system", which indicted the respondents were not familiar with the automated bud in their city. I thought the first thing we need to know is why they don't want to try the auto bus, but this paper didn't show this. Since the respondents were not familiar with the system, most usages are just for fun, the survey result didn't show much difference with other work.

I thought the survey should to find in which case the respondents will choose the auto bus, and which part prevent them to try the bus.

Reply: Thanks for your comments. The automated buses operated in Stockholm in October, 2018. Although only 20% respondents used the system, almost all respondents are aware of the existence of the. These respondents are more familiar with the system, as most of respondents saw the bus themselves and know the speed and frequency of the bus system. This study was done based on early stage of deployment, both the awareness and adoption rate will increase overtime. Further studies will be done by the third wave of data. We add this argument in the last paragraph accordingly. (Line 364-366)

Moreover, this paper focus on the influences of public’s perceptions on bus adoption, and found that attitudinal factors, such as public perceptions of safety, driving speed, reliability and convenience, have significant influence on the acceptance of the new bus system. As suggested by the reviewer, as a new transport mode, it is important to know what factors prevent individuals to use the new public transport mode. We add a section in the last paragraph. (Line 366-376)

Reviewer 2 Report

The survey being reported on does not relate to a regular public transit route with a standard size bus with say 50-60 passengers, but rather a small feeder shuttle bus over a 2.5 km route; also, the results are unsurprising. Nevertheless, the paper is perhaps worth publishing, since the survey is based on a real-life automated bus service rather than on hypothetical scenarios.

I believe, however, that the authors need to address the following points:

Literature review – too much repetition of results already discussed in the first section

Lines 33-35 – the benefits of automated buses are reported as if these were facts.

Lines 45-46 – unclear – the old expect automated vehicles to be more comfortable?

Lines 60-63 – isn’t there a contradiction here?

Lines 108-113 – again, a contradiction here? How is luggage space a function of automation?

Table 4 – what is the difference between regular public transit and regular bus?

Lastly, it is interesting that commuters wish for both high speeds and safety, both of which are major barriers for non-adopters in the survey.

Author Response

The survey being reported on does not relate to a regular public transit route with a standard size bus with say 50-60 passengers, but rather a small feeder shuttle bus over a 2.5 km route; also, the results are unsurprising. Nevertheless, the paper is perhaps worth publishing, since the survey is based on a real-life automated bus service rather than on hypothetical scenarios.

I believe, however, that the authors need to address the following points:

Literature review – too much repetition of results already discussed in the first section

Reply: We combine the introduction section and literature review section accordingly.

Lines 33-35 – the benefits of automated buses are reported as if these were facts.

Reply: We revise this section, as ‘The introduction of automation technology is expected to generate social and economic benefits, such as reducing labor costs for operations and maintenance, improving roadway safety and capacity, inducing traffic congestion, and providing more accessibility to young, elderly and disabled people. (Hoogendoorn et al., 2014; Fagnant and Kockelman, 2015; Greenblatt and Saxena, 2015; Harper et al., 2016; Wadud et al., 2016; Letter and Elefteriadou, 2017; Dong et al., 2019; Narayanan et al., 2020). Such potential benefits of the new transport mode are widely discussed and expected to be examined in the coming years.’ (Line 31-39).

Lines 45-46 – unclear – the old expect automated vehicles to be more comfortable?

Reply: In the new combined introduction, we remove this example to avoid repetition.

Lines 60-63 – isn’t there a contradiction here?

Reply: We revise this example to make it clearer, as ‘Using a stated choice experiment, their study suggest that riders may have concerns about personal safety if driverless buses don’t have a transit employee providing customer service or monitoring the bus’s operational systems. The more a passenger is concerned with vehicle operational safety, the less willing she or he will be to ride in an automated bus.’ (Line 81-84)

Lines 108-113 – again, a contradiction here? How is luggage space a function of automation?

Reply: We revise this example to make it clearer, as ‘Their findings indicated that passengers reported that taking a ride in the shuttle was fun and enjoyable. However, the respondents were not inclined to replace their current transport mode for the shuttle, which may not be surprising as the shuttle operated under very limited conditions.’ (Line 67-70)

Table 4 – what is the difference between regular public transit and regular bus?

Reply: Thank you for your comment. We correct the mistake in Table 4.

Lastly, it is interesting that commuters wish for both high speeds and safety, both of which are major barriers for non-adopters in the survey.

Reply: Thanks for your comment. We add this consideration into the last section, as ‘Moreover, as the automated bus service improves, the overall quality of the service will change over time. To be more specific, at the moment, the maximum speed of the automated buses on the mixed traffic environment on the public road in Stockholm is around 10 km/h and would reach 18 km/h in the next few years. Meanwhile, both the service route and size of the buses would be doubled in the future. Concerns about speed, safety, reliability and convenience would influence passengers’ willingness to take automated buses. This might implicate that passengers’ perceptions on the quality of the new bus service may not be have significant result as the quality of service is equivalent to human-driven buses. Thus, a longitudinal tracking study based on panel survey data will be done in the next step to explore whether public perceptions would change, and whether improved perceptions of the automated buses would help to increase ridership.’ (Line 366-376)

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

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