Collective accessibility impacts of public transport automation on rural areas: The case study of Mühlwald, South Tyrol

Abstract

Collective autonomous vehicles (AVs) might change the accessibility of rural areas in the following decades. For instance, the operating cost savings triggered by automation could allow upgrading traditional bus lines or introducing alternative on-demand services. These improvements could benefit rural dwellers as a whole, and especially people who rely on collective transport. Nevertheless, few studies focus on the applications and accessibility impacts of AVs in rural areas, with most research focused on urban centres. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the potential effects of five collective automation scenarios on the accessibility of a rural study area: the Alpine valley of Mühlwald in South Tyrol (Italy). The AV scenarios propose line-based and on-demand services and combinations of both over space and time. The study measures their accessibility impacts at the collective level. However, accessibility is not estimated through a traditional place-based approach like a gravity model. Instead, a space–time model performs person-based accessibility calculations for a sample of residents and aggregates the results at the collective and spatial level. Results show that scenarios replacing today's system with on-demand and rideshared AVs could provide the highest collective accessibility gains, especially when considering the destinations outside Mühlwald. However, also a mix of line-based and on-demand services combined over space and time could achieve similarly high benefits, especially within Mühlwald. With these results, policymakers may get a picture of the pros and cons of different AV applications for rural accessibility and start discussing how to improve current systems in future based on their policy priorities and desired accessibility effects.