The relevance of social factors in sharing a trip with strangers: Creating travel communities in the autonomous vehicles era

There has been a growing interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs) for the past few years due to technological innovation and their far-reaching expected impacts on urban mobility. The impact of AVs depends ultimately on how the technology will be adopted, e.g. privately or shared AVs (SAVs), and integrated into the socio-technical mobility system. In this study, we evaluate how social considerations and the AV technology may enhance new social arrangements for travel, especially for groups suffering from some disadvantages in accessing transport. Particularly, we explore a proposed new form of social arrangement, coined “Travel Community” (TC), to create shared AVs trips based on individual preferences. An online national representative sample in Israel was conducted (N = 1009). The data was analyzed using multivariate methods including multinomial logistic regression models for the willingness to adopt TC in two contexts: commuting (TCC) and travel leisure (TCL). The findings suggest that TC was well accepted by the participants under certain assumptions and could address latent demand for improving travel options for people with different constraints accessing transport, such as women, young, sporadic travelers, and low-income individuals. The personal social preferences option might help overcome psychological barriers regarding shared mobility, such as the fear of sharing the trip with strangers and a social value promoting a new kind of social interaction. Planners and stakeholders should consider social considerations' relevance (opportunities and risks) for promoting and creating new forms of mobility and improving urban sustainability and social inclusion.