Research

Mi-Link Research

The University of the West of England (UWE) is the research partner in the Mi-Link project. If you have any questions or comments about the Mi-Link research, please email the UWE Project Lead, Professor Graham Parkhurst

The aim of the UWE research is to understand the user experience of the new travel options (the autonomous electric minibus and bus, the electric bikes and new journey planner) and the wider effects of their use. People using the new services might show a change in their attitudes towards sustainable travel due to being informed about the project.

For transport professionals in particular, the knowledge gained from the project will help understand what wider-scale adoption of the new technologies could mean for the transport system as a whole.

The research has four objectives:

Objective 1: Understanding the impacts of new Mi-Link transport and information services on travel behaviour and preferences

 So far UWE has:

  • Produced a working note for Mi-Link summarising the concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) available here.

  • Studied the take-up of the electric shared bikes alongside the existing shared bikes through a survey of Milton Park employees and follow-up interviews with some of the respondents. The research also examined awareness of the Mi-Link journey planner. A final report of the research is available here. A report focusing in greater detail on survey findings only is available here.  An extended conference abstract derived from this study is available here.

  • Developed a classification of the approaches to providing flexible transport services to places such as science and technology parks. A conference paper is available here.

  • Collated the findings of relevance for Mi-Link from an earlier project which experimented with MaaS. A conference paper is available here.

Future plans are:

  • To consider how an electric autonomous bus network serving Milton Park could give increased levels of service to customers due to lower operating costs. This may lead to a higher share of trips to and from Milton Park being by bus and so the carbon emissions due to travel to and from the science and technology park being lower (in part because the buses are electric but also resulting from fewer people using cars).

  • To evaluate what has been learnt about the role of autonomous vehicles and journey planning tools in relation to meeting sustainable transport outcomes at an out-of-town science and technology park.

 Objective 2: Evaluating people’s perceptions and experiences of the electric autonomous buses

 So far UWE has:

  • Undertaken a survey of the same people on three occasions, several months apart, to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting travel to and from Milton Park. This was necessary because long-established travel patterns changed significantly due to the lockdowns, and we needed to understand the new context in which the Mi-Link services are being offered. A report of the findings will be available in Autumn 2023.

Future plans include:

  • An on-board survey of users of the electric autonomous buses to understand their experiences of using autonomous buses.

  • A survey of Milton Park employees to find out how many are aware of the buses being in operation, whether they have ridden on them and what they think about them.

  • Interviews with some Milton Park employees for a more detailed understanding of travel to the park and the impacts of the electric autonomous bus.

  • Observations of the interactions between the buses and other road users to understand potential impacts on the design and operation of roads.

Objective 3: Understanding gaps between expected and actual AV technology readiness

So far UWE has:

  • Undertaken interviews with members of the Mi-Link consortium, to capture their expectations about the technologies on offer during the process, to decide which autonomous electric vehicles would operate at Milton Park.

 Research plans include:

  • Undertaking follow-up research interviews with members of the Mi-Link consortium to capture their reflections on how the autonomous buses performed during the operational period, whether expectations have been met and what lessons have been learnt. 

Objective 4: Examination of safety operative aptitudes

So far UWE has:

  • Undertaken a review of the personal characteristics (disposition, experience) necessary to be an effective safety operative of an automated vehicle. The safety operative is the person who sits in the driving seat and ensures the vehicle is operating safely, and can intervene to drive the vehicle manually as necessary. The review is available here. 

Research plans include:

  • Interviews with the team that operates the autonomous electric buses to capture their experiences.

If you have any queries about the research or would like more information, please contact Professor Graham Parkhurst, Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol. 

The co-Investigators at UWE are: Professor Chris Alford, Dr Caroline Bartle, Dr Thomas Calvert, Dr Ben Clark, Professor John Parkin and Professor Tony Pipe.