“Our focus is on making sure that transportation of all kinds is available for people with disabilities and older adults and their caregivers,” explains Carol Wright Kenderdine, Co-Director of the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NADTC). A joint venture of the Easterseals and the U.S. D.O.T.’s Federal Transit Administration, the NADTC works with transit agencies to improve transportation accessibility, whether “walking, biking, driving, and transitioning from driving, as well as fixed-route public transit, dial-a-ride services, volunteer transportation programs, taxis and other shared ride options.”
NACTC’s scope extends beyond the mode of transport and includes helping people access and understand how to use the available transportation modes. Speaking at the AVS18 Summit in San Francisco, Kenderdine indicates that the lack of transportation options is one of the challenges the NADTC’s constituency faces. For this reason, the nascent state of autonomous vehicles excites Kenderdine, as it presents an opportunity to increase and improve mobility choice.
She stresses that autonomous vehicle manufacturers and service providers reach out early to groups that the NADTC represent to understand the needs and design accordingly. This so-called universal design doesn’t necessarily mean increased costs, if incorporated from the initial design phase, and benefits people of all abilities and ages.¹ She points out that the lessons learned from years of providing accessible public transit is a great resource for autonomous vehicle developers.
The above video shows glimpses of a couple of early autonomous electric vehicles – Accessible Ollie and Navya’s Robotaxi – that break the mold of traditional shuttles and allow for new form factors; form factors that are more accommodating for people with special needs. An electric drivetrain allows the decoupling of the vehicle bodies from the electric skateboard chassis, while an autonomous brain and associated control mechanism eliminates the need for things like steering wheels or front-facing seats.
Kenderdine suggests that this new design paradigm, “holds promise for not only increased accessibility, but increased quality of life.”
¹In one sense, the design for accessibility approach becomes almost a cultural aspect of a company, like designing for quality or security, and should be a given, since the American with Disabilities Act was signed into law almost 30 years ago.
2 replies on “Designing for Autonomous Accessibility”
The following comment on the above video is from Alain Kornhauser, Princeton Professor and Faculty Advisor, PAVE (Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering), in his August 18th, 2018 SmartDrivingCar newsletter
http://smartdrivingcar.com/6.35-UberLosses-081818/ issue
“A substantial difference about autonomousTaxis is that they are individually managed and dispatched to serve a unique demand. The right vehicle can be assigned to serve the right demand. Consequently, I hope that it will be OK with everyone if specially equipped vehicles can be used to provide mobility to those who can benefit and need the special equipment and not that each vehicle must have all of the specialty equipment so that it can be used by anybody. All that should be required is that the level-of-service offered (basically wait time) to any customer is independent of the special equipment. This can be achieved if a sufficient quantity of each variety is available for dispatch. Unfortunately, that may not have been Carol’s focus.”
The interesting thing to me is that the new form factors and design possibilities made possible by the electric skateboard chassis and the autonomous brains could improve accessibility for a large portion of the population without necessarily adding cost to vehicles (e.g. a deck that is essentially level with a curb).
There might be other things, like automatic electric ramps, that, although adding cost to the vehicles, might be cheaper than retrofitting infrastructure. To Alain’s point, there might be some accessibility features that add a significant cost, such that it wouldn’t make sense to integrate them into every vehicle.
The question is at what level, if any, will some sort of government intervention be needed to ensure accessibility for all and what form that will take (e.g. the Bern Grush model where the transit agency sets the goals and provides incentives, as necessary, for private entities to meet those goals).
https://viodi.com/2018/07/28/a-new-kind-of-transit-agency-smartdrivingcar/