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Autonomous Vehicle: Future of Transportation Sustainability

Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 June 2023) | Viewed by 2696

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Shantanu Thakar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Robotics AI, Amazon.com LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA
Interests: autonomous vehicles; motion planning; mobile manipulation

Dr. Mayank Bendarkar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
Interests: aviation sustainability; autonomous vehicles (aircraft) safety and certification

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Reducing the environmental impact of human activities is at the core of sustainability. This Special Issue focuses on the role of autonomous vehicles in the future of sustainable transportation of people and goods. For the scope of this journal, we consider autonomous vehicles for personal and public transportation, taxis, last-mile delivery, and cargo on ground or in the air.

Autonomous vehicles promise immense environmental and social benefits, including reduced energy, emissions, and noise, improved mobility and travel times, and optimized vehicle ownership. As the number and types of autonomous vehicles increase, they are expected to make a significant contribution towards sustainable transportation.

Industry and academic research into autonomous vehicles, both air and ground, has exploded due to these perceived benefits. There are, however, significant challenges to realizing this future autonomous vehicle era. This Special Issue seeks to publish archival research that addresses the challenges to the future of transportation sustainability from the viewpoint of autonomous vehicles.

We therefore call for papers for this Special Issue on topics and themes that include (but are not limited to):

(1) Autonomous vehicle motion generation and its environmental impact;

(2) Autonomous public transportation and sustainability;

(3) Autonomous vehicles for goods delivery/cargo transport and sustainability;

(3) Life cycle environmental impact evaluations for autonomous ground/air vehicles;

(4) Multi-autonomous vehicle coordination for sustainable mobility;

(5) Safety and certification of autonomous ground and air vehicles;

(6) Simplified vehicle operations/advanced air mobility (AAM) and sustainability;

(7) Simplified operations/autonomy for ground/air mobility;

(8) Environmental cost of future autonomy computational needs.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Shantanu Thakar
Dr. Mayank Bendarkar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

autonomous vehicles
last-mile transportation
low carbon
autonomous cargo
environmental impact
life cycle impact
advanced air mobility (AAM)
simplified operations
optimized motion planning
multi-AV coordination

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 2355 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Travel Demand Increment Due to the Use of Autonomous Vehicles

by Dilshad Mohammed and Balázs Horváth

Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 8937; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118937 - 01 Jun 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 970

Abstract

Advanced technology available in promising fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) will encourage people to travel more than they have up to now using their regular vehicles. It is believed that the disadvantages of manually driven vehicles, such as driving fatigue, stressful feelings, aging physical skills deterioration, and other unwanted effects, will vanish once AVs are employed. For this purpose, this study presents the results of a large questionnaire performed in Győr, Hungary, about the public perception and acceptance of AVs. In addition, assessing the impact of using such technology on increasing travel demand when people can alter their mode of transport to an AV. The study demonstrates that respondents’ prior knowledge of AVs plays a crucial role in generating a greater number of trips when they are able to use AVs. Furthermore, it has also been found that providing further awareness and education to the population about the meaning of the term autonomous vehicles and widening their insights about the new features provided by these vehicles will result in a higher number of trips. Eventually, this information will act as a considerable indicator to provide a prior understanding of the possible challenges that may impact the sustainability of future transport systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Vehicle: Future of Transportation Sustainability)

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Other

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21 pages, 860 KiB

Open AccessEssay

A Study of Young People’s Intention to Use Shared Autonomous Vehicles: A Quantitative Analysis Model Based on the Extended TPB-TAM

by Yang Liao, Hanying Guo and Xinju Liu

Sustainability 2023, 15(15), 11825; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511825 - 01 Aug 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1169

Abstract

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) have the advantages of both autonomous driving technology and shared transportation, which is an important development direction for intelligent and green transportation in the future. However, a lack of trust and a high perceived risk have reduced the public’s willingness to use this mode of travel. To improve the public’s willingness to use it, many scholars have conducted research, but young people are still a neglected group. A structural equation model was used to test the models based on 316 survey samples. The results indicated that initial trust had a significant positive effect on the intention to use SAVs, while perceived security risk and perceived privacy risk had no significant effect on the intention to use, but perceived security risk can indirectly negatively affect the intention to use. In addition, attitude and face consciousness had a significant positive influence on intention to use, while subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived usefulness had a significant indirect positive influence on intention to use SAVs. The findings showed that the model used in this paper was reasonable and valid for explaining young people’s willingness to use SAVs. This will provide guidance for formulating more effective strategies for this group. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Autonomous Vehicle: Future of Transportation Sustainability)

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