Stakeholder involvement in decision-making process: a test assessment towards transition to autonomous vehicles

Diverse stakeholder participation in transport planning is beneficial but difficult to achieve, as it deals with various levels of government, operators, users, and other interested parties. Furthermore, such planning is confined by issues of geography, economics and human demand, and in the case of transport it must integrate with other territorial constraints. The authors had an opportunity to carry out an accompanying research while municipalities or regional agencies establish a widened stakeholder involvement framework for municipalities including their surrounding ones, known as Functional Urban Area (FUA). In this process, aiming at optimizing commuter traffic, participating institutions are trying to set up a coordinating structure among various stakeholder in each FUA. To optimize the commuter traffic, a various new types of mobility services are considered as potential implementations such as ride sharing, car sharing, bike sharing, etc., as well as classical types of transport services such as public transport. In this paper, we present what kind of role each stakeholder can play for different types of measures towards environment-friendly commuter traffic. Following this, we present an assessment about how it may change along with the penetration of higher-level autonomous vehicles (AVs). It will add some extra roles to public authorities compared to today, especially as regulators and financers. Stakeholder involvement to address questions arising with the penetration of AVs onto the street will have to be carried out in a step-wise manner, starting with those having with endogenous motivation for sustainable mobility, and then being extended to further stakeholders.