Development of a conceptual sustainability assessment framework

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INOM TEKNIKOMRÅDET EXAMENSARBETE FARKOSTTEKNIK OCH HUVUDOMRÅDET INDUSTRIELL EKONOMI, AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP , STOCKHOLM SVERIGE 2018

Development of a conceptual

sustainability assessment

framework

A sustainability assessment of autonomous

vehicles

PHILIP TORSTENSSON

VICTOR GOCH

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Development of a conceptual sustainability

assessment framework:

A sustainability assessment of autonomous vehicles

by

Philip Torstensson

Victor Goch

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:135

KTH Industrial Engineering and Management

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Utveckling av en konceptuell

hållbarhetsbedömningsram:

En hållbarhetsbedömning av autonoma fordon

av

Philip Torstensson

Victor Goch

Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:135

KTH Industriell teknik och management

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Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:135

Development of a conceptual sustainability

assessment framework:

A sustainability assessment of autonomous vehicles

Philip Torstensson

Victor Goch

Approved

2019-05-14

Examiner

Johann Packendorff

Supervisor

Erika Lokatt

Commissioner

KTH Integrated Transport

Research LAB (ITRL)

Contact person

Anna Pernestål Brenden

Abstract

Today’s sustainability assessment frameworks are no longer applicable when evaluating the new

automotive vehicles. Therefore, the need for suitable automotive evaluation frameworks increases

as companies and scientists are trying to predict the important sustainability characteristics of

tomorrows car and how it will affect our societies. The goal is to create a conceptual sustainability

assessment framework to solve the very complex question of what the most important criteria are

and how this new transportation type might affect our society. This is done using a system

approach, a method that is suitable for studying interrelations between the influencing factors in

complex problems like the one between the sustainability dimensions. Scenario analysis has been

used in order to create the future environment and do a segmentation of the plausible concepts of

futuristic transportation options. The evaluation criteria have been developed by gathering

information through a literature study and from primary sources via interviews.

The resulting framework is composed of 19 evaluation criteria from the different dimensions of

sustainability. The framework allows the user to insert a futuristic concept and evaluate it to

compare a numeric score to other concepts to get indicators of how sustainable the concept is. The

segmentation of futuristic vehicles shows that the most plausible types of automated vehicles are

shared taxis, non-shared taxis and privately owned vehicles, all affecting society differently.

The thematic analysis of the criteria has shown that there some relationships and types of criteria

that are more important than others. The most essential discovered correlations between criteria

are: Production and affordability and also maintenance & operation and affordability, affordability

with accessibility, affordability & accessibility and traffic volumes and further traffic Volumes

and pollution.

The developed framework is believed to have the desired function of creating a trustworthy

assessment of autonomous vehicles based on the literature study and previous discoveries within

the field. The evaluation of the different segments is left for future work

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hållbarhetsbedömningsram:

En hållbarhetsbedömning av autonoma fordon

Philip Torstensson

Victor Goch

Godkänt

2019-05-14

Examinator

Johann Packendorff

Handledare

Erika Lokatt

Uppdragsgivare

KTH Integrated Transport

Research LAB (ITRL)

Kontaktperson

Anna Pernestål Brenden

Dagens ramverk för hållbarhetsbedömningar är inte längre användbara vid utvärdering av nya

självkörande fordon. Därför har behovet ökat av lämpliga ramverk som fokuserar på

hållbarhetsutvärderingar

när

företag

och

forskare

försöker

förutse

de

viktiga

hållbarhetsegenskaperna av morgondagens fordon och hur de kommer att påverka vårt samhälle

utifrån ett hållbarhetsperspektiv. Målet med studien är att skapa ett konceptuellt ramverk för

hållbarhetsbedömning som kan hjälpa till att lösa den mycket komplexa frågan om vilka viktiga

kriterier bör inkluderas vid en evaluering av denna nya typ av transport. Studien har följt ett

systematiskt tillvägagångssätt kallat ”System approach”, en metod som är lämplig för studier där

relationer mellan olika påverkande faktorer är väldigt komplexa, som den mellan

hållbarhetsdimensionerna. Scenarioanalys har används för att skapa en framtida miljö och en

segmentering

av

de

mest

trovärdiga

koncepten

av

framtida

transportalternativ.

Utvärderingskriterierna har utvecklats genom att samla in information från en litteraturstudie och

från primära källor genom intervjuer.

Det resulterande ramverket är sammansatt av 19 utvärderingskriterier inom de olika

dimensionerna för hållbarhet. Med det resulterade ramverket kan användaren införa ett futuristiskt

fordonskoncept och bedöma detta för att få ett numeriskt resultat och jämföra dessa med andra

utvärderingar för att få en indikation om hur hållbara koncepten är gentemot varandra.

Segmenteringen av de futuristiska fordonstyperna visar att de mest trovärdiga typerna av

automatiserade färdmedel är delade taxitjänster, privata taxitjänster och privatägda fordon, alla

med olika påverkan på samhället.

Den tema-baserade analys av kriterierna har visat att det finns vissa relationer och typer av kriterier

som är viktigare än andra. De viktigaste upptäckta relationerna mellan kriterier är: Produktion och

ekonomisk tillgänglighet, underhåll och ekonomisk tillgänglighet, ekonomisk tillgänglighet med

tillgänglighet till transport, tillgänglighet till transport och trafikvolymer, ekonomisk tillgänglighet

och trafikvolymer och slutligen så påverkar trafikvolymerna utsläppet.

Det utvecklade konceptuella ramverket antas ha den önskade funktionen att skapa en pålitlig

bedömning av autonoma fordon baserat på litteraturstudien och tidigare upptäckter inom fältet.

Utvärderingen av de olika segmenten lämnas till framtida studier.

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work with this project and for valuable information and feedback throughout the development process. We would like to thank Anna Pernestål Brenden, the project commissioner and Martijn Bout, our supervisor together with the other employees at ITRL for the opportunity to work and creating an exciting future together.

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Abbreviations

AV autonomous vehicle

CSAF conceptual sustainability assessment framework

e.g. example

ITRL Integrated Transportation Research Lab KTH Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan

RIOT Royale Institute of Technology

UN United Nations

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2 Guiding areas 31

3 Method for development of evaluation criteria 35

List of Tables

1 Process for evaluation of results (Lindgren and Bandhold, 2006) 10

2 Definitions and interpretations of sustainable development and sustainability

(Joumard, 2010). 13

3 Sustainability issues (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2007). 14

4 Definition of sustainable transport. Inspired by Joumard (2010). 16

5 Levels of automation of self-driven vehicles (SAE International, 2018) 18

6 The top-down and bottom-up methodological paradigms for developing and

ap-plying sustainability indicators. (Reed, Fraser and Dougill, 2006) 24

7 Categorisation of the two paradigms (Collis and Hussey, 2014) 26

8 Recommended table structure 36

9 Process for evaluation of results 37

10 Process for evaluation of economical sustainability results 44

11 Process for evaluation of environmental sustainability results 45

12 Process for evaluation of social sustainability results 46

13 Conceptual sustainability assessment framework result 48

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1 Introduction

This chapter describes the purpose of the thesis. It contains an introduction along with a background to the studied field; concrete research objectives and delimitations with regards to the scope.

The development of self-driving, also called autonomous vehicles is happening fast and will affect our transportation systems and societies. Researchers and companies have suggested different types of solutions to this transition, some including replacing private cars with large fleets of autonomous taxis, shared and non-shared, others using self-driving vehicles as a complement to cars and public transport. In the development of these new transportations systems, interest has been shown by both researchers, company leaders, and policy-makers to compare these futuristic alternatives from a sustainability perspective (Integrated Transport Research Lab, 2018) and to do so, new tools and frameworks are needed that can take a futuristic scenario into consideration.

The interest for making a comparison of the different alternatives from a sustainability per-spective is based upon the idea that none of the three different dimensions: Social, Economic or Environmental are mutually reinforcing and not mutually exclusive. This means that it is important to study how the different dimensions affect one another and when studying the relationship from a societal point of view, the relationship becomes even more complex. When faced with a problem with such a complex structure as the one described above, it is recommended to use a system approach, also called system theory that is described as the in-terdisciplinary study of systems. The use of such an approach allows for a systematic discovery of a systems dynamics, constraints and conditions that can be discerned and applied to systems at every level of nesting to achieve knowledge of internal synergies and impacts from making changes within the system (Beven, 2006).

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1.1 Background 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

1.1.1 The development of sustainability

There is a widespread of definitions and vocabulary used to describe the field of sustainability. So for a consistency throughout the report the word sustainability stands for the goal and the word sustainable development stands for the process (and priorities) of moving towards this ideal goal or en state.

Sustainability is in general terms described as the endurance of a process or a system. From a social science perspective, sustainability addresses the endurance and social challenges of urban planning and transport, lifestyles, ethical consumerism, laws, and ethics. Examples of forms that societal sustainability takes are reorganising living conditions, reappraising economic sec-tors (green building, sustainable agriculture), development of new technology (renewable energy, green technology and such) and adjustments of individual lifestyles (Fawcett et al., 2012). Eco-nomic sustainability is the allocation of market resources, growth and consumption which help the economic growth of the said system. This includes the economic benefits certain things have on companies, individuals and so forth, and how they affect the system as a whole. For something to be economically sustainable, the use of resources should be optimised (Basiago, 1998). Environmental sustainability focuses on the ecosystem as a whole where for example resources have to be used at such rate that it can regenerate. The handling of waste, emissions etc. is also of high importance (Basiago, 1998)

The 2005th World Summit on Social Development agreed to set the goals for sustainability based on the three different dimensions of sustainability: social development, economic devel-opment and environmental protection (United Nations General Assembly, 2005). To maximise sustainability level, a balance between all three dimensions have to be found.

The introduction of cars to the society simplified peoples life by giving them the freedom to travel more easily between different locations. Today people use cars to travel to their work, grocery stores, family and sometimes just for their amusement. At the same time, people are more aware of the environmental impacts, and therefore different types of sustainability are of high importance for many users. (Ford, 2018)(Kay, 1997)

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with the help of new materials and constructions, more environmentally friendly with new en-gines or ways the enen-gines work to reduce the emissions and so forth. Thanks to this, a lot of research and improvements within electric cars are on the agenda as the emissions are vastly reduced when electric vehicles are used compared to cars with a combustion engine (Eberhard and Tarpenning, 2006).

The car has not only brought negative impacts on sustainability, with its focus to make lives easier for humans in multiple ways, and it has also created new jobs and economic opportunities. With the growth of the car industry, new jobs were created at the manufacturing plants, the companies that work with the creation of materials, electronic systems manufacturers and so forth, improve the social and economic sustainability of the society. The cars have made it possi-ble for people to work as drivers for different services and created opportunities for new services and so forth. With the mass production of vehicles, they became cheaper for users which in turn leads to an economic benefit for multiple parties while improving the social sustainability aspects of the users at the same time.

1.1.2 Autonomous Vehicles

With the introduction of autonomous vehicles, the way cars are used today will change. Self-driven vehicles lead to many new opportunities and a wider user base as a driving licence will not be necessary to use the vehicle. Many new questions regarding ethics, infrastructure and usage will come into place.

Although with new technology comes new questions regarding it and therefore, to make stan-dardisation of autonomous vehicles, SAE international have created a standard definition for the different types of self-driven vehicles. This includes different terminologies and what is in-cluded at the different levels of automation to avoid confusion. The standardisation has divided autonomous levels of vehicles into six different levels, where level zero is no automation and five is full automation (SAE International, 2018).

With the introduction of self-driven vehicles, there is a possibility to make the car more sustain-able than a human-driven car. This is a possibility thanks to the automated vehicles optimisa-tion of driving (eco-driving) and or together with carpooling, possible reducoptimisa-tions in emissions can be made (Wadud, MacKenzie and Leiby, 2016). Therefore, according to Eberhard and

Tarpenning (2006) electric cars have a much lower CO₂ emissions and by looking into the usage

of cars, optimisation of the driving with the help of self-driven vehicles and a possibility of using electric cars there is a chance to reduce emissions greatly compared to petrol driven cars.

1.2 Previous research

1.2.1 Sustainability indicators and assessments

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1.2 Previous research 1 INTRODUCTION

In the article ”An adaptive learning process for developing and applying sustainability indicators with local communities” (2006) Reed, Fraser and Dougill analyse and propose a best practice for developing and applying sustainability indicators at a local scale to develop a methodological framework. They state that we need these new type of tools to be able to measure and facilitate progress towards a broad range of social, economic and environmental goals and highlight the importance of sustainability indicators becoming an integral part of international and national policy in recent years. They state in their research that the problem is that a majority of the existing indicators are based on national-level gathered data rather than local and therefore fails to measure what is important on a local level. The second issue presented is that communities are less likely to invest money in data collection that does not provide an immediate benefit. This means that indicators must be relevant to local people and methods, interpretations and display of data must be easily and effectively used by non-specialist so that local communities can actively participate in the process.

The article concludes the research with the suggestion that it is possible to use different types of system approach being top-down reductionist and scientific methods to measure sustainability and bottom-up, community-driven participatory methods and a combination of the two. The paper suggests that when creating these types of assessment frameworks based on sustainability indicators, you should start with defining stakeholders, systems of interest, problems, goals and strategies through qualitative research.

In summary, both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used when selecting and ap-plying sustainability indicators. This leads to a general set of steps and methods that are using different sources, methods, investigators and theories. The usage of both top-down and bottom-up achieves a hybrid knowledge that is required to provide an understanding of the environmental, economic and social system interactions that are required to provide local sus-tainable development.

1.2.2 Assessment framework

Dominik Jasinski, James Meredith and Kerry Kirwan published the article ”A comprehensive framework for automotive sustainability assessment” (2016) in which they, through a system approach have developed a comprehensive automotive sustainability assessment framework by selecting a set of sustainability assessment criteria. The article reports a beginning of a re-search to develop models for a more holistic and comprehensive sustainability assessment of automobiles. The goal was to create an aid made for both practitioners and academics with a framework which would make it possible to evaluate integrated automotive sustainability characteristics through assessment. The developed frameworks can provide guidance on what needs to measured with regards to integrated sustainability assessment of vehicles and leaves the choice of what to include to the user.

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on the sustainability performance of automobiles. By using the framework, engineers can make decisions during the development phase that considers the environmental, economic and social sustainability characteristics that are important to consider in the early stages of development. Dominik Jasinski, James Meredith and Kerry Kirwan conclude that qualitative research is a effective method when examining different meanings, views and relationships. Something that they highlight as very important for a complex issue such as sustainability. They also highlight that these types of studies and frameworks are known for being subjective and open for interpretation by the user. This is because a researchers bias is unavoidable in qualitative research, and therefore empirical testing of the final framework is critical in order to strengthen the validity and reliability of frameworks such as this.

1.3 Motivation for study

The recent increase in interest in how the use of autonomous vehicles will affect our societies from a sustainability perspective is what drives the motivation of this study. There is a lack of tools and studies with a particular focus on how to create an assessment framework set in a future environment with sustainability characteristics of AV´s as its focus as well as the differences between the major alternatives of future transportation systems. The purpose of this project is therefore to create a conceptual framework to evaluate these alternatives based on the differences in sustainability from a societal point of view. In summary, the information divided from the systematic approach of the study will show the characteristics and factors that account for a particular effect and to what extent the social sustainability is affected. A scope and research objectives have been formulated to guide the work towards the sought after findings.

1.4 Scope of study

The scope of this study focuses primarily on understanding the different aspects of sustainabil-ity concerning the usage categories of autonomous vehicles in a future urban environment by future scenario planning and the creation of an assessment framework that together creates a broad, holistic understanding. The study takes place during the first half of 2018 in the city of Stockholm and will, therefore, lay the foundation for the location of the present the present day analysis used for comparison of the compiled results. These sustainability aspects are studied on different levels of the society divided and defined by the authors. The project is based on exploratory research that drives the scenario creation, segmentation and the creation of the framework. The study is based on both secondary and primary sources where both an infor-mal and forinfor-mal approach is taken to discussions, in-depth interviews and pilot studies. The selected people used for gathering primary data through interviews will work as valuable input any to the framework and show the difference in the working relationship towards sustainability depending on company goals and values.

1.4.1 Delimitations

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1.5 Research Contributions 1 INTRODUCTION

This report will only feature the creation of the framework, future scenario and segmentation but the actual evaluation using the framework is left for future studies.

1.5 Research Contributions

The main contribution of this work is the conceptual framework that is developed in the inno-vational part of the project and is a result of the previous work of segmentation and scenario creation. The study of today’s technology and society has an observational part where the usage of cars is studied to understand the present relation to society and sustainability. This contributes to a present state analysis that has a focus on sustainability with relation to us-age. This is done using parameters that can be related to future scenarios and automotive vehicles. The case study then builds upon the knowledge gathered from the present state to construct a plausible future scenario where the different usage segments of autonomous vehicles can be tested and evaluated. This is then used in the creation of the framework that can be used to evaluate the relationship between autonomous vehicles, today’s cars and the different dimensions of sustainability. The conceptual framework allows for different kinds of automotive transportation concepts to be evaluated in the future but, could also be used in the present state. An evaluation of the framework could contribute with valuable insight into the importance of usages of similar frameworks for evaluations and understanding of complex relationships. The conceptual framework helps with the understanding and create a holistic overview of com-plex relationships between the different usages of autonomous vehicles and the sustainability from a societal point of view. The results can easily be concluded using a cause loop diagram and compared to the present state analysis. The framework will work in such a way that dif-ferent concepts of transportation usages can be defined from a set of parameters that defines the usage of the specific concept. That usage segment is inserted in the framework that helps the user evaluate the concept and draw conclusions about possible outcomes depending on the specific properties that that kind of usage has. The criteria that the framework is expected to meet is that it provides a significant and reliable result for the different inputs of different usage segments. This means that the results seem reliable. The case study will provide a reliable base for the creation of a future scenario where automotive vehicles are in use and together with the result from the creation and usage of the conceptual framework provide material that shows the relationship between the usage and sustainability from a societal perspective.

1.5.1 Research Objectives

The aim of the project is through explanatory and exploratory research, study the complex relationship between the different dimensions of sustainability, society and the usage of AV´s. To reach this goal the main research objective needs to be reached. This is done by working towards the sub-objectives and finding the answers to the research questions. When this is done, the main objective is answered and the aim of the project, to study the relationship between the conceptual autonomous transportation options as a complement to today’s public transport and the sustainability dimensions from a societal point of view has been met.

Main research objective

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the main research objectives are divided into sub-objectives, each complemented with a research question (answered in the following order), to guide the work throughout the project.

The first sub-objective is to study and define how the three dimensions of sustainability vary within the different levels of society when studying AVs. The goal is therefore to answer the research question:

• How is it reasonable to define sustainability on the different levels of society for au-tonomous vehicles?

The second sub-objective is to study what key indicators that are important to include in the evaluation of different usages of the new transportation systems. The Key indicators are chosen to fit the scope of the study and will, therefore, be based on the effects on sustainability that the usage of autonomous vehicles will have and around the usage itself. The relationship between these two will be displayed using a cause-loop diagram. This sub-objective is reached by answering the following research question:

• What are important indicators, factors or measures to include in a sustainability evalu-ation regarding usage of autonomous vehicles and how could they possibly be related to one another?

The third sub-objective is to study the difference in usage of the different types of autonomous vehicles to find what makes they have in common and what makes them different to be able to conduct a segmentation. This objective is complemented by the research question:

• What are the uncommon and common denominators and sustainability characteristics of AVs depending on how they are used and how they are segmented?

1.6 Assumptions

There are several parts of this project which includes assumptions with regards to the future scenarios and the different usage segments of AVs. This is due to the very complex models and uncertainty in future speculations. These assumptions are mainly with regards to the standard AV that we have based on today’s early concepts of the usability, function and design of the future AV. Other Assumptions are made to create a realistic future urban environment. The assumptions are developed based on previous studies and via consultation with experienced researchers in the field. Specific assumptions are presented throughout the report.

1.7 Disposition

Following the brief introduction to the outline of the paper, this section provides a more in-depth description of the work carried out and the content of the paper.

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1.7 Disposition 1 INTRODUCTION

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2 Theory

This chapter presents theories, literature and frameworks used throughout the project. The ma-jority of the project is based on theories surrounding sustainability, complex problem solving and the creation and usage of a conceptual framework. This chapter helps increase the understanding of these theories and how they relate to the project so that the readers, better can follow the thought process of the authors.

2.1 System approach

System approach is a problem solving method commonly used in management and system lit-erature. The idea behind the method is that when one is faced with a complex problem, one should not just focus on the different parts but instead look at the whole picture which can be referred to as the total system concept. Complex problems that are commonly solved with this method often have their origin in social or economic behaviour. To further define the method of looking at the total system concept, one can not only look at the total picture though it is essential to locate key issues that are underlying the problem; and these key issues may lie beyond its obvious realms. (Chen, 1975).

In short, the method can be described as the essential way of tackling a problem by identi-fying and focusing on the most critical elements. This is done by first studying the problem faced with. When this is done, one can start applying the system approach. The first step is to clearly define the new desired state or goal. In this new state the different dimensions such as who, when and where needs to be defined as well as what is the desired state and what is not. (Chen, 1975).

2.2 Sustainability assessment framework

Sustainability assessment frameworks are used when deciding whether or not to proceed with projects depending on the studied environmental impacts. One specific and significant charac-teristic of frameworks is they do not specify the different analytical tools that are to be used for the analysis (Gasparatos, 2010). Gasparatos (2010) discusses this and concludes:

”The selection of the evaluation tool lies with the analyst’s particular worldview or subject of expertise, which is ultimately projected upon a particular project. Thus, the tool becomes the yardstick to evaluate the sustainability of the project at hand” The tools selected for the creation of a framework are classified as either reductionist or non-reductionist. The reductionist tools are characterised by the usage of a single measurable indicator, a single dimension, a single objective and a single time frame. This could, for example, be, for a cost-benefit analysis tool be ”costs” as a single indicator. Non-reductionist tools integrate methodological choices that are subjective in nature. This means that the tools integrated are particularly influenced by the creators of the framework. Multi criteria Analysis (MCA) is an example of such a tool. In MCA subjective criteria are used when evaluating criteria definition, data selection, aggregation and weighting (Messner, Zwirner and Karkuschke, 2006).

2.2.1 Scenario planning

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2.2 Sustainability assessment framework 2 THEORY

for small businesses, choose an education or judge an investment. The futurist Peter Schwartz, who is a professional creator and user of scenario planning, describes a process used for creating future scenarios from an inside-out perspective. To use an inside-out perspective means that one starts with analysing the key factors and then the driving forces of change. In our case when studying the sustainability characteristics of AVs, this would be first analysing the differ-ent aspects of the car and then the social, political, environmdiffer-ental and economic perspectives. (Schwartz, 2007)

Lindgren and Bandhold (2003) describe scenario planning as a method used to deal with un-certainties in a business environment and something that is used for forecasting, vision and prognoses as a vivid description of the future (Lindgren and Bandhold, 2006). The Table 1 be-low summarises the difference between traditional planning and the scenario planning approach.

Traditional planning Scenario planning

Perspective Partial. ”Everything

else being equal”

Overall, ”Nothing else being equal”

Variables Quantitative, objective Qualitative, not

neces-sary quantitative, sub-jective

Relationship Statistical, stable

struc-tures

Dynamic, emerging

structures

Explanation The past explains

present

The future is the reason d’être of the present

The future Simple and certain Multiple and uncertain

Method quantitative models

(economic, mathemati-cal)

Intention analysis,

stochastic models (cross

impact and systems

analysis)

The future Passive or adaptive (will

be)

Active or creative (is created)

Table 1: Process for evaluation of results (Lindgren and Bandhold, 2006)

Peter Schwartz presents, in his book ”The Art of the Long View” published in 1997 six number of steps used to construct a future scenario. These steps are identifying the issue, identification of key forces in the local environment, driving forces, rank by importance and uncertainty, define the scenarios and selection. These different steps are described in detail in the method chapter 4.2.1.

2.2.2 Conceptual frameworks

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properly often leads to a more precise, structured and consistent decision-making process (Lon-don School of Economics, 2018; Mascarenhas et al., 2010). This is important when creating a conceptual framework that is supposed to work for a long time and a wide range of concepts. To achieve this, there is a need for a methodological flexibility and triangulation, adapting a diverse set of sustainability tools, especially when creating the evaluation criteria. The eval-uations criteria are developed based on a future scenario and the method of using criteria as measurable indicators is something that has been used in similar, previous studies and is a recommended type of evaluation for this type of assessments (Foxon et al., 2002; Cinelli et al.,

2016). The reason for this is that this type of evaluation, defined and applied properly often

leads to a more precise, structured and consistent decision-making process (London School of Economics, 2018; Mascarenhas et al., 2010). This is a important when creating a conceptual framework that is supposed to work for a long time and a wide range of concepts. In the article ”A comprehensive framework for automotive sustainability assessment” by Dominik Jasinskia, James Meredithb and Kerry Kirwanof (2016), a five step model, is presented containing the steps definition of major assessment areas, definition of sub-areas, development of criteria, crite-ria refinement and definition of relationship. These steps are described in detail in the method chapter 4.2.2.

2.2.3 Thematic analysis

When conducting an analysis of qualitative research one of the most common forms of analysis methods are so-called thematic analysis. What makes thematic analysis interesting is that it fo-cuses on finding patterns and themes by in certain steps breaking down the information (Guest, MacQueen and Namey, 2012). There are many different versions of thematic analysis a common theme amongst them are that they are made up of steps that are underpinned by philosophical and conceptual assumptions and are derived in terms of the procedure itself. (Braun and Clarke, 2006)

The theme is described as a pattern or meaning from the gathered results that are related to the research question at hand. Much like other qualitative methods, thematic analysis is also affected by the researcher’s bias. This is because the researcher’s judgement is critical when determining when themes occur and how important they are. (Braun and Clarke, 2006) The method of a thematic analysis can be divided into a set number of phases that are fol-lowed to reach a conclusion of the qualitative study (Braun and Clarke, 2006). These steps in Table 9 makes up for the analysis of the resulting framework and the interrelation of evaluation criteria.

2.3 Sustainability theories

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def-2.3 Sustainability theories 2 THEORY

initions used is the one by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), also called the Brundtland Report published in 1987 that defines sustainability as:

”A process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of invest-ments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations”.

The Brundtland Report has played a central role in studies done on the field of sustainability and is a standard when judged by its use and frequency of citation (Kates, Parris and Leis-erowitz, 2018).

Sustainable development is the process of working toward the end state. This is also defined by the Brundtland Report (1987) as:

“ability to make development sustainable — to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

This quotation and the following discussion by the WCED about global problems led to a statement about ”sustainable development” which explains how the phenomena can be, which on the surface seems to be a very different issue. So what sustainable development suggest is the work towards improved human well-being without forgetting or damaging society or the environment. This could be development that provides real improvements in quality of life and also conserves the vitality and diversity of ecosystems. The topic of just environmental sustainability is common, but it is just as important to not only focus on the environmental concerns alone; the commitment to human and societal well-being is just as important as the ecological commitment to the planet. for that we must preserve a planet fit to live on and at the same time create stable institutions that sustain the quality our socio-economic life. (Flint, 2013)

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Study Definition (Pearce,

Markandya and

Barbier, 1989)

Sustainable development involves devising a social and economic system which ensures that real incomes rise, that educational standards increase, that health improves, that the general quality of life is advanced (World

Conserva-tion Union, 1991)

Sustainable development involves improving the quality of human life whilst living within the carrying capacity of the ecosystems.

(Holdgate M. W., 1993)

Development is about realising resource potential, sustainable develop-ment of renewable natural resources implies respecting limits to the development process, even though these limits are adjustable by tech-nology.

(Pearce, 2014) Sustainable development is concerned with the development of a society

where the costs of development are not transferred to future generations, or at least an attempt is made to compensate for such costs.

(HMSO, 1994) Most societies want to achieve economic development to secure higher

standards of living, now and for future generations. They also seek to protect and enhance their environment, now and for their children. Sustainable development tries to reconcile these two objectives.

(Spedding and

Spedding, 1996)

In an attempt to explain sustainability, Spedding gives two propositions that fit the concept. Sustainability must be based on resources that will not be exhausted, and it must not create unacceptable pollution.

(ESTY, 2005) Sustainability is a characteristic of dynamic systems that maintain

them-selves over time.

Table 2: Definitions and interpretations of sustainable development and sustainability (Joumard, 2010).

2.3.1 Dimensions of sustainability

Sustainable development defined as above but for a more in-depth understanding of intercor-related relationships that contribute to sustainability, sustainable development is often defined through three different dimensions. These dimensions, also often referred to as pillars are: economic-, social- and environmental sustainability. For something to be sustainable, these three dimensions must be equally balanced (Joumard, 2010).

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2.3 Sustainability theories 2 THEORY

Figure 1: Interactions between dimensions of sustainability (Joumard, 2010). Adopted from Gudmundsson (2007).

Economic Environmental Social

Affordability Pollution

Resource efficiency Climate protection Equity

cost internalisation Biodiversity Human health

Trade and business activity Precautionary actions Education

Employment Avoidance of irreversibility Community

Productivity habitat preservation Quality of life

Tax burden Aesthetics Public participation

Table 3: Sustainability issues (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2007).

Flint (2013) proposes the following definition of the separate dimensions:

Economic sustainability - can be defined as development what protects and/or enhances

neu-tral resource quantities through improvements in management practices, policies, technology, efficiency and change in lifestyle.

Social sustainability - can be defined as equal access to jobs, education, natural resources,

ser-vices and total welfare. Environmental sustainability - can be defined as the understanding of natural systems, land use, watersheds and a guide to design sounds economic development strategies that preserve natural resources.

2.3.2 Concept of sustainable transport

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(2002) have created a commonly used definition and describes it as ”Sustainable transport meets the mobility needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet these needs”. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2000) continued the work and created the definition:

A sustainable transport system is one that throughout its full life-cycle operation: • allows generally accepted objectives for health and environmental quality to be

met, for example, those concerning air pollutants and noise proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO);

• is consistent with ecosystem integrity, for example, it does not contribute to exceeding of critical loads and levels as defined by WHO for acidification, eu-trophication and ground-level ozone; and

• does not result in worsening of adverse global phenomena such as climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion.

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2.3 Sustainability theories 2 THEORY

Study Defenition

Richardson (1999)

A system in which fuel consumption, vehicle emissions, safety, conges-tion, and social and economic access are of such levels that they can be sustained into the indefinite future without causing great or irreparable harm to future generations of people throughout the world.

Transport Canada (2008)

A system that is safe, efficient and environmentally friendly. Sustain-able transport is about integrating economic, social and environmental considerations into decisions affecting transportation activity.

Transportation

Association of

Canada (Duncan

and Hartman,

1996).

A sustainable transportation system has the following characteristics: • (a) In the natural environment:

• It limits emissions and waste (that pollute air, soil and water) within the urban area’s ability to absorb / recycle / cleanse. • It provides power to vehicles from renewable or inexhaustible

en-ergy sources. This implies solar power in the long term.

• It recycles natural resources used in vehicles and infrastructure.

(b) In society:

• It provides equity of access for people and their goods, in this generation and in all future generations.

• It enhances human health.

• It helps support the highest quality of life compatible with avail-able wealth.

• It facilitates urban development at the human scale.

• It limits noise intrusion below levels accepted by communities. • It is safe for people and their property. (c) In the economy: • It is financially affordable for each generation.

• It is designed and operated to maximise economic efficiency and minimise economic costs.

• It helps support a strong, vibrant and diverse economy .

New Zealand Min-istry for the Envi-ronment (2008)

Sustainable transport is about finding ways to move people, goods and information in ways that reduce its impact on the environment, the economy, and society.

Queensland Gov-ernment (2008)

Sustainable transport allows for everyday activities such as: • visiting our friends and families when we want to • getting to work and con-ducting our business

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2.3.3 Unsustainable contribution

The previous sections in this chapter has defined the characteristics of sustainability and what contributes to a positive change and process towards sustainability. Now, the unsustainable contributions are stated so that these easier can be spotted and evaluated further on.

If something evaluated has the opposite or negative effect to what has been stated in Table 4 above, it has a unsustainable contribution. The behaviour and development characteristics that previously has shown a negative contribution to sustainable development has also been studied on there own by Flint (2013) who suggest the following list of criteria that defines a negative contribution independently of the sustainability dimension:

• Lack of understanding for human connection with nature and the usage of resources. • Economic deficiency

• A segregation in a society where money is controlled and only in the hands of a few and the imbalance of power that comes with it.

• An economy driven by profit motives, greed and consumption. • Communities competing with each other about work and workforce. • Inaccurate perception of others

• Lack of accountability in government, in corporations, and in individual behaviour. • lacing blame “out there” rather than accepting responsibility at home.

• Barriers between work, home, play—e.g., physical separation, sprawl, and isolation • Lack of trust, both in service, safety and in others.

• Conflicting goals, strategies and analyses.

2.4 Autonomous vehicles segmentation

The segmentation created for the autonomous vehicle usage areas is based on a literature review conducted in order to gather data regarding the technology. This data will be summarised in this chapter and its sub-chapters, and it will be later used in the CSAF

2.4.1 Autonomous Vehicles

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2.4 Autonomous vehicles segmentation 2 THEORY

capable of using both steering and acceleration/deceleration assistance techniques at the same time with the help of information of the driving environment. Level 3 introduces the fact that the so-called autonomous system handles the monitoring of the driving environment, where the human is supposed to help the vehicle by intervening when necessary. With level 4 the automotive system introduces the fact that it should be able to handle situations where the human does not intervene when needed and finally with level 5 the vehicle is fully automated. Level 5 automation means that the car should be able to handle every situation on any road by itself where a human manages the conditions. (SAE International, 2018)

Table 5: Levels of automation of self-driven vehicles (SAE International, 2018)

2.4.2 Segmentation

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the individual but rather to the larger mass.

As the scope is directed towards the usage of different transportation types, more specifically autonomous human transportation means, the transportation classes that are of interest are privately owned cars, shared, and none shared taxi fleets. The Swedish Traffic analysis author-ity ”Trafikanalys” does not think Sweden has reached its peak amount of vehicles and made the conclusion that cars are still significant transportation means. There is very little change in the amount of personally owned vehicles the last couple of years, and therefore, privately owned self-driven vehicles are very probable in the future (Trafikanalys, 2015). According to Krueger, Rashidi and Rose (2016), a shared taxi fleet is a probable scenario for the future, and this is further backed up by Trafikanalys (2015) where they have noticed a trend of increased carpooling among car users. The shared taxi fleet studied in the research conducted by Krueger, Rashidi and Rose (2016) is compared to the usage of taxis today, which indicates that it can be assumed that autonomous taxis can be used as shared or none shared options. The reasoning behind the assumption is based on the fact that people that do not own a car privately still might prefer the freedom of taxis over public transportation. Automated taxi fleet will pick up the passenger at the requested location and drive to the passengers desired drop off point. If the taxi is shared the automated taxi will pick multiple passengers in the same area and that have similar destinations and transport them to their respective destinations or a middle ground which suits the passengers equally. Shared taxi fleets already exist today in the form of, for example, UberPool (Uber, 2018).

There is also the alternative of having street transit (i.e. public transport) automated in dif-ferent ways. It could work like street transit today which travels between a certain amount of points (i.e. bus stops) back and forth in an uncontrolled environment, or they could be created as APMs (Automated people movers) which work in controlled conditions, like for example the APM created by ParkShuttle located in Schiphol Airport (Lohmann and van der Zwaan, 2017). Creating controlled environments are likely a middle step between non-automated vehicles to fully automated vehicles, although this thesis focuses on the future where the assumption has been made that all automated vehicles are of SAE level 5 - Fully autonomous (SAE International, 2018)

2.4.3 Future scenarios for autonomous vehicles

With the uncertain future of automated vehicles, there is no way to make precise segmentation between the different vehicles types. This means features such as how the vehicles will look, how they will be owned are hard to predict with today’s knowledge regarding self-driven ve-hicles. The reasons for this are many, for example, it is uncertain right now what the users of automated vehicles will expect from the technology and how they want to use it (Maurer et al., 2016). Although, even though uncertainties exist, there are researchers that have tried to define possible future segments and scenarios. According to Ross and Guhathakurta (2017) and Corwin et al. (2016) there are four possible future scenarios in regards to self-driven vehicles.

1.Technology not accepted This scenario is based on the fact that autonomous vehicles

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the time of writing the report. Therefore the norm of owning private vehicles, using traditional taxis and street transit will continue to dominate the way users operate transportation vehicles (Corwin et al., 2016).

2. Partially autonomous vehicles

This scenario is based on the fact that full automation (SAE level 5) will not be achieved within the projects time frame but instead levels 1-4 will be achieved. Here, automation will be under development and even partially accepted by the society where the norm of owning a personal vehicle still dominate over shared-taxi fleets and other transportation services. Although some improvements to the cars can be seen in the form of cruise control and other A.I technologies that are on SAE level 1-4 (SAE International, 2018)(Corwin et al., 2016). According to Corwin et al. (2016), this scenario provides around 9% of energy reduction thanks to the autonomous features provided by the SAE level 1-4 vehicles such as eco-driving, platooning and guidance technologies. In this scenario, a self-driven taxi fleet is not an option as SAE level 5 has not been achieved and therefore, as stated earlier, privately owned vehicles will dominate when it comes to vehicle usage.

3-4. Fully autonomous vehicles

The fully autonomous scenario could be divided into two different segmentations, one where personally owned vehicles still dominate the vehicle market or one where shared vehicles dom-inate. In the scenario where privately owned vehicles dominate, an energy usage decrease up to 58% can be seen from the usage of vehicles. However, as full automation gives the oppor-tunity for the new type of passengers such and more comfortable travels, a total increase in the energy consumption is possible, as big as 205% in the U.S (Corwin et al., 2016)(Ross and Guhathakurta, 2017).

If instead shared vehicles dominate the future, a decrease in energy usage can be seen with the help of platooning, right-sizing, eco-driving and car sharing. These changes diminish the increase of energy usage from the higher speeds of vehicles and new user groups that might start using cars. Scenarios where shared taxi-fleets dominate often include the fact that these taxis are not petrol driven, but electric vehicles. If the electric vehicles are combined with right-sizing and other benefits from autonomous vehicles, the energy consumption and emissions will become much lower (Corwin et al., 2016). But even here some studies show uncertainty when it comes to the energy consumption in regards to shared vehicles, ranging from 64% decrease to a 194% increase in energy consumption. The level of increased efficiency in these scenarios heavily depend on the fact how the vehicles and their engines will develop, how the consumers will use the cars and how the infrastructural network will be developed. It is also said that shared vehicles will reduce the vehicle miles travelled as multiple users will co-ride in the same vehicle (Ross and Guhathakurta, 2017) (Corwin et al., 2016).

2.4.4 Potential user groups and benefits

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owned cars compared to the younger (Krueger, Rashidi and Rose, 2016), but with easier access to vehicles, even the young might choose to use cars more frequently. As the car might become widely available to a larger mass, it can lead to an increased vehicle-fleet as many new users who could not use cars before may have the possibility to do so with autonomous vehicles. There are different potential benefits with autonomous vehicles in regards to privately owned and shared-taxis (Litman, 2018). Privately owned vehicles provide the users with high convenience as it is available without any delay and the users may keep items in the car while the car is not used. The disadvantages with privately owned vehicles are that the car type cannot be adapted to the situation at hand and that it is rather expensive to own a car. The potential user group for these types of vehicles are people living outside of cities or if they want to own a specific type of car.

Autonomous and shared autonomous taxis, on the other hand, have the advantage of right-sizing, which adapts to the users needs for the trip at hand, with a door to door service which is explained more thoroughly in Chapter 2.4.5. The disadvantage with taxi services are for an example that the consumer has to wait for the car to arrive to the location of the user. The vehicle’s condition may vary heavily depending on prior passengers cleanness. The potential user group for this type of service are people who travel a less than average miles annually. There may also be services that transport multiple groups of consumers from a similar loca-tion to a drop of point that is nearby for all of the passengers. This is the cheapest oploca-tion but at the same time the least convenient option from all the above. This option is most appropriate for users in the lower income regions.

2.4.5 Key factors within the segmentation

According to literature, one common appearing way to categorise autonomous vehicles is by right-sizing. Considering that the primary focus of the project is usage of the autonomous vehicles, right-sizing might be an excellent way to classify the vehicles. Right-sizing is when the service provider (like Uber, Google or whichever taxi-like service might exist it the future) adapts the vehicle provided to the user’s needs. An example for how this works in practice is that one person is looking for transport from point A to point B without any extra possessions, there is no reason for the service provider to send a sedan with four seats. Instead, the car will be adapted, and a so-called pod will be sent out. A pod is a small vehicle taking one passenger, and its purpose is to minimise the size, its weight and at the same time increase its performance, reduce traffic congestion and make travels more flexible. Another example is if a family of four is travelling somewhere with luggage, then a vehicle with four seats and luggage space will be chosen as transportation for this specific travel. (Maurer et al., 2016)(Krueger, Rashidi and Rose, 2016)(Chee, 2018). At the same time, another important factor is the weight of the vehicle, as a lighter vehicle will require less energy than a heavier vehicle accelerating to the same speeds (Maurer et al., 2016). With autonomous vehicles, it is said that fewer accidents will occur as the artificial intelligence will optimise the cars driving and predict other vehicles pathways and so forth. With these changes, it is possible the materials used today could be replaced with materials less resistant to impacts that are more environmentally friendly, lighter or better recyclable. (Maurer et al., 2016)

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more seats need to have them used to maximise the effectiveness of the journey from a sustain-ability perspective.

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3 Methodology

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the methodology used in order to reach the results and conclusions made by conducting the research. The approaches to solving the problem at hand will be explained to provide the reader with the necessary knowledge to understand the process. The methodology is the systematic approach to solve the research questions. The approach varies

depending on the nature of the study, and therefore the methodology chosen is of importance.

3.1 Methodological approach

The goal that this project aims to achieve is to fill the gap in knowledge about the sustainability aspects of future AVs and also supply a framework for how to evaluate these. Sustainability is a complex field that builds on interrelations of dimensions and many different factors and in this project. Also, the different perspectives of societal and individual are considered. This makes the problem very complex, and therefore much effort has been put into using a set of methodological approaches that best suit the problem. By studying literature, system approach with a top-down perspective is a suitable approach to solve the problem and develop indicators for a sustainability assessment. (Reed, Fraser and Dougill, 2006)

System approach as described in theory chapter 2.2 is a problem-solving method commonly used when one is faced with a complex problem. What the top-down helps with is just what the system approach intends to do, exposes the roots and trends that are usually missed by more casual observations (Reed, Fraser and Dougill, 2006).

The top-down perspective, used when addressing a complex problem with a system approach explained above is one of two major methodological paradigms for these type of problems. When developing assessments for sustainability Bell and Morse (2001) define these two major paradigms as the one being expert-led called top-down and the other one being community -led called bottom up. The first has its epistemological roots in scientific reductionism. The reductionist approach is common in many fields like landscape ecology, conservation biology as well as economic; the expert-led approach of top-down is also used when indicators are used in complex dynamic systems (Reed, Fraser and Dougill, 2006).

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3.2 Vehicle usage segmentation 3 METHODOLOGY

Table 6: The top-down and bottom-up methodological paradigms for developing and applying sustainability indicators. (Reed, Fraser and Dougill, 2006)

The purpose of using a framework is to in an efficient and easy way evaluate the impact on the environment and defined to the specific project at hand. The framework, in this case, is a non-reductionist tool used to measure characteristics. The framework uses phase by phase methodological approach through sustainability assessment. The steps are definition of ob-jectives; formulation of alternatives; scenario analysis; environmental analysis; valuation and conclusions (Finnveden et al., 2003). The methodological paradigm of non-reductionism inte-grates methodological choices which are subjective in nature and are particularity influenced by analyst performing the analysis (Finnveden et al., 2003). An approach was chosen due to the characteristics of the project where there is not much data to be gathered. Therefore it has been decided as the most suitable methodological approach that can tie back to the usage of thematic analysis for studies of thematics of sustainable development assessments.

3.2 Vehicle usage segmentation

As the future of self-driven vehicles is uncertain, the methodology for creating the correct grouping of vehicles and their usage is based on different literature, scientific articles found and interviews held. With the combination of these, it will be looked into how people tend to create the evaluation groups for automated vehicles in order to make our own assumptions that work well with the information gathered. The information gathered will be grouped together with different key aspects of the vehicles in order to make the distinction more clear. Unfortunately, as automated vehicles are not commercialised yet, there is no certain future for them. This leads to an approach where assumptions must be based on the little data that exists, and therefore, our conception of the future world has to be created in order for the reader to understand why the specific assumptions were made. This means that they have to be discussed in depth in order to justify the choices made.

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3.3 Research philosophy

3.3.1 Methodological paradigm

According to Collis and Hussey (2014), a research paradigm is a philosophical framework which helps in guiding the scientific research and how it should be organised and carried out. There are two main types of research paradigms, and those are called ”Positivism” and ”Interpretivism”. Positivism is mainly used in natural science researches as it focuses on proving researches with the help of scientific proof, such as a mathematical solution or provide logical explanations. The theories under positivism show basic explanation, predict the occurrences and permits the anticipation of phenomena which allows them to be controlled. Casual relationships are usu-ally formed between the different variables as casual law linkage is is with a deductive or an integrated theory. Even though this type of paradigm was mainly used for natural science researches, it has been more commonly used in social science research as of late. This means that the natural and social worlds have been seen as fixed by some laws in regards to cause and effect. The values can be both measured or observed, which means that the theories usually consist of multiple interrelated variables. This type of paradigm is usually used with quantita-tive methods and analysis of quantitaquantita-tive data (Collis and Hussey, 2014).

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3.3 Research philosophy 3 METHODOLOGY

(Collis and Hussey, 2014) states that these two main paradigms can be seen as the two extrem-ities within research design and therefore there are other paradigms in between those two. To decide if the study is of positivism or interpretivism type, Collis & Hussey (2014) suggest that that one should look at Table 7 to determine in what type of paradigm one’s study fall under.

Table 7: Categorisation of the two paradigms (Collis and Hussey, 2014)

Considering the nature of the study and its areas explored, this study has its primary focus within an interpretivism research paradigm but is at the same time involving some aspects of positivism. As stated in previous chapters, the future of autonomous vehicles is hard to predict, and therefore the uncertainty is high. The ontological assumptions made are that there are multiple outcomes regarding autonomous vehicles and not only one single possible reality. At the same time, from the pre-study, it can be seen that there is a possibility that the future users of autonomous vehicles might shape the future of the technology, which indicates that the social reality is socially constructed. Both of these philosophical assumptions indicates that an interpretivism paradigm is of interest for this particular study. The epistemological assump-tions once again show that interpretivism is the most accurate paradigm as the researchers have interacted with the phenomena studied in the form of interviews and the shaping of frameworks, evaluation points and so forth. Although, the knowledge used are from previous studies which are based on objective evidence that are measurable and observable which indicates a positivist approach, at the same time data is also from subjective evidence from interviews, and the re-searchers own assumptions based on the objective evidence gathered.

Collis and Hussey (2014) argue that there are more factors that determine the paradigm that should be chosen. Interpretivism tends to use small samples, have a natural location for the research, produce findings with low reliability but high validity and finally to allow the findings to be generalised from one setting to another similar setting. Positivism, on the other hand, use large samples, have an artificial location for its research, produce results with high reliability but low validity and allow results to be generalised from the sample to the population (Collis and Hussey, 2014). Reliability is when an experiment or study is replicated, and it gives the same results again while validity is when the results concluded represent what is happening in the specific situation. Considering the methods used during the study, how data has been gathered and what is studied, an interpretivism paradigm has been followed.

3.3.2 Empirics

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research has been constructed. Interviewees have given their own thoughts on the future of autonomous vehicles which has, in turn, shaped our perception regarding them. By looking through previous research and their results and having close contact with researchers at ITRL throughout meetings, the data gathered and discussions have shaped the project to some extent. The information has been used to help to point the project in a specific direction where specific types of vehicles segmentations, evaluation criteria have been selected as best suited. This means that the data gathered has been combined with own assumptions to fit the goals set for the project.

3.3.3 Exploratory and explanatory methods

As the nature of the study is based on both information gathered from literature studies and a case study, the methodological approach is a combination of both explanatory and an ex-ploratory processes. As stated in the Research Objectives/Research Questions chapter 1.5.1, this is a viable approach to take when the study involves exploration of subjects that have not been studied to a great extent before. As Automated Vehicles are on the verge to enter the market, this is a valid method to use. The purpose of the thesis is to identify and discover new evaluation points used to describe, evaluate and compare the four different alternatives from a sustainability point of view. As the thesis is a part of a larger project at ITRL, it also fits the description of an exploratory approach as those are usually created as pre-studies for more extensive projects within social science research. (Blomkvist and Hallin, 2014)

Further, the case-study that has been conducted within the project fits the explanatory method-ology as it will be used to aid the findings, evaluation points, and analysis of the four alternatives from the exploratory part of the project. As the project focuses on the comparison and eval-uation of the four alternatives, casual links will be found between those in the area of the automated vehicle (Blomkvist and Hallin, 2014).

3.3.4 Literature review

According to (Blomkvist and Hallin, 2014) a literature review is done to get a better understand-ing of the subject that will be researched. In this particular study, the literature review is the foundation for the project as the subject explored is not well established. With the literature review, knowledge in regards to what usage areas autonomous vehicles may have in the future, sustainability, conceptual framework creation and evaluation theories has been gathered. This has been done to get a better understanding of how the project should be structured and type of studies to have to be done to be able to answer the research questions.

3.4 Data collection

The data used was gathered with the services provided by the library at the Royal Institute of Technology (RIOT). The services provided are access to databases such as Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, the Primo search engine provided by the library of RIOT and other similar re-source systems.