Today, many travellers are happy to share a train, bus or plane with a group of strangers. However, when it comes to taxis and ride-hail services such as Uber and Lyft, the close confines of a car and a preference for privacy means that sharing is far from the norm. It remains unclear as to what this means for the passenger experience in shared autonomous vehicles (AVs) when they eventually hit the road.
One Sunnyvale, California-based start-up aims to ensure that sharing a robo-taxi is attractive. Using a play on the word ‘empathy’, mpathy.ai describes itself as a ‘virtual ride attendant’ for operators of shared mobility services. However, even in a tech hub such as San Jose—where many of these futuristic technologies and business models are being developed—most are still hesitant to share a ride with a stranger.
“Who of you came using any form of shared transportation today to this event,” asked Dietmar Meister, Chief Executive and Co-founder of mpathy.ai, during M:bility California, a two-day event hosted by Automotive World. A show of hands indicated that only 20% of the room. “How many of you used a pool service such as Uber Pool or Lyft Line?” he continued. Just one raised hand in the audience illustrated the challenge that lies ahead. “As you can see, shared mobility is present and exists today, but pool rides certainly have room for improvement,” Meister admitted.
Meister may lead a start-up, but he describes himself as a ‘veteran’ of the automotive industry, having previously served as Director for Car Multimedia innovations at Bosch. Interestingly, while all of this was voiced during the conference to a packed audience of industry stakeholders, his LinkedIn profile currently states that he runs a start-up in ‘stealth mode’.
Fancy sharing a ride?
The attraction of city living and employment opportunities are driving more people than ever into urban areas, and that is bad news for decades-old inner-city road networks that may initially have been laid out to support horse and cart. Meister predicts the number of passenger vehicle miles travelled in North America and Europe each year to increase by 20% by 2030. In Asia, that figure is expected to skyrocket 240%. Travellers may favour single-occupancy car travel today, but in future that simply may not be possible.
“Cities are already overcrowded with traffic today, and it will become a nightmare if things do not change. Some of the changes that can help will be bringing more and more people into pooled rides,” explained Meister. “It will not be about having your private car anymore.”
This ‘bundling’ of rides will mean there are fewer vehicles on the road. For example, consider how many people may take an Uber to an event. Even if an extra couple of people took up empty spaces in those vehicles, overall traffic heading to that event would be slashed significantly.
Careless passengers
The long-term goal is for such vehicles to become fully autonomous, with driverless shuttles catering for larger groups and driverless taxis for smaller groups. The challenge is not only in developing the technology that can act in place of a human driver—capable of navigating from A to B in a safe and efficient manner regardless of the road scenario—but also in creating an experience that entices new users in, and keeps them coming back.
“There is plenty of energy going toward the problem of solving the driving part,” said Meister. “But what is also important is to cover the other duties such as managing the relationship with the passengers, ensuring they have a great time and that the cabin is clean and maintained. These issues need to be addressed—we are talking about strangers sharing what is essentially a small room.” Meister is under no illusions when it comes to the scale of the challenge on this front. “It will not be easy,” he told the audience.
One of the interesting areas that he believes will be pivotal in curating an attractive experience is to ensure that passengers do not leave items in the vehicle. It is a problem that afflicts travellers in any form of transport, with wallets and smartphones falling out of bags, pockets or idle hands. “We’ve seen and learned from car-sharing today that we are humans and we forget things,” said Meister. He highlighted some of the most common lost and found items in Lyft vehicles: a phone, wallet or keys. Some are less expected, such as a bicycle, a Christmas tree and even a block of house bricks. “It’s amazing what people can leave behind.”
Today, the expectation is that if a passenger leaves an item—whatever it may be—in the ride-share vehicle, they will get it back. This could be as simple as the driver being alert and resolving the situation there and then, or ensuring the items are returned at a later date once they have been found. “But how do you handle that in a shared AV in future? By default, the vehicle would simply drive to the next pick-up point for the next passenger, who may be happy to gain a new key, phone or wallet.” One thing is for sure, he warned: “You are certainly not getting those items back.”
Bad PR
Some items may be left on purpose—empty coffee cups, crisp packets or old tickets and receipts. All things considered, robo-taxi operators need to get a handle on the situation and figure out how to keep their cars usable. Their reputation depends on it.
“Passengers will not be happy if there are stains and trash, but the most painful thing to deal with in that category is vomit. This happens frequently in ride-hailing today—particularly on a weekend night,” said Meister. There are also the prospective use-cases for autonomous ride-sharing that operators will be keen to avoid publicising: drug use, prostitution and even homeless shelters. “These are things that already happen today,” he warned. “Human creativity does not have limits, so we can expect much more to come.”
All of these challenges are where mpathy.ai is tailoring its efforts. Given that commercial deployment of shared robo-taxis without safety drivers is some way away, even in geo-fenced areas, Meister assured that there is still time to come up with solutions. That being said, there is no time like the present to get started. “All of this needs to be solved by the point where we remove safety drivers. Day one of the operation of that vehicle, it must be addressed,” he continued. “Otherwise, the conclusion may be that operation costs go through the roof, you are constantly cleaning mess and are not profitable—or you see negative PR.”
The solution
Operators can go a couple of routes, he suggested. They could simply accept that cars will not be in great shape and users will not always be happy, but ensure that the service is otherwise prompt and affordable.
The other option is to use remote surveillance—a camera monitoring system for example—in tandem with an off-site location where an agent can keep an eye on things. Given this would still require a human in the loop, “you could question whether this approach makes sense,” said Meister.
Alternatively, he explained, operators can use a form of smart monitoring technology to understand what is going on in the cabin, and prevent all of these unfavourable cases. Mpathy.ai provides a software suite and an artificial intelligence (AI) set that is based on three building blocks: perception, interaction and engagement.
In short, the car will monitor what is going on, chat to passengers and intervene where necessary, and finally encourage riders to engage with each other. In many cases, sharing a car will be a relatively awkward dynamic between strangers, but mpathy.ai believes it is possible for an enjoyable discussion to take place. Today, this typically happens if the driver initiates that discussion to break the ice. Looking ahead, Meister suggested that the cabin’s AI could even act as a dinner host.
