Content area
Full Text
Abstract
Systems engineering has often concerned itself with how operator and customer roles change when systems change. In the context of automated vehicles (AVs), it has been assumed that operators will be removed from the system, but new insights reveal that the role of operators (typically thought of as drivers) has been transformed, not eliminated. In this study, we identify how taxi companies, Transportation Network Companies (TNCs, e.g., Uber and Lyft), and AV companies use varying organizational architectmes to achieve required functions, and we explore how these architectmes might change with the emergence of automated taxi services. Drawing on field observations, detailed ethnographic studies, archival documents, and semi-structured interviews with AV technical and operational experts, we identify and detail required functions for these services. Preliminary results reveal that the structmes of commercial AV taxi services more closely parallel traditional taxi organizations rather than current TNCs based on their capital cost and human labor requirements. Future research will explore short and long-term development pathways for AV systems and their associated structural and functional requirements. While the structmes of these AV companies will continue to develop alongside the automation technologies, early explorations of AV organizations can promote dialogue about regulations that might direct emerging AV services toward more desirable service and labor outcomes.
Keywords
Automated vehicles, TNCs, Taxis, Robotaxis, Labor
1. Introduction
Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft have raised billions of dollars by promising a future of automated taxi fleets (robotaxis) that would eliminate the cost of a driver and pave a path to profitability [1]. Prior simulation studies investigating the potential impacts of automated vehicles (AVs) have similarly adopted this assumption of "zeroing out" the labor costs for robotaxi services, focusing solely of the capital costs of AVs [2]. Introducing automation, however, often results in a transformation of human labor rather than a complete substitution [3]. Government officials me calling for assessments of the future of transportation work in light of automation and its implications for worker skill requirements and workers' rights [4]. Understanding these labor changes can also provide insights into how AV services might be delivered and regulated. To investigate how vehicle automation is changing the nature of labor requirements for robotaxi services, this study draws on field observations, detailed...