Needs and expectations of older passengers in using autonomous public transport

AVENUE is a H2020 EC project, aiming to design and carry out full scale demonstrations of urban transport automation by deploying fleets of autonomous mini-buses in low to medium demand areas of 4 European demonstrator cities. The target group of AVENUE is passengers, including people with reduced mobility, disabilities, elderly and in general potentially vulnerable users. User experience and accessibility are of key importance when designing and developing innovative and disruptive urban public transport services. Thus, user surveys were realized in six countries, one of which was Greece. In this paper, the users’ feedback gathered in the Greek survey with 15 older travelers (> 60 years old) is presented. Overall, the survey showed that about half of the respondents are willing to use driverless /autonomous public busses, but with several pre-requisites. The safety level, reliability and trust issues are crucial factors for the elder passengers and the autonomous busses acceptance level.