It takes a village: Creating safe and equitable transportation

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is still new and developing. The challenge with introducing any new technology is gaining enough public trust to make it normal. Throughout history, many inventions have faced skepticism, and autonomous vehicles are no exception. Fortunately, we don’t want people to keep quiet. We understand that it can sometimes be difficult to integrate a new big technology into our everyday lives. When we establish open channels of dialogue, giving people the opportunity to express their worries, feedback or criticism, it fuels our commitment to improve our technology and meet the transportation needs of the people we aim to serve every day. Your voices matter and that’s why we put so much effort into engaging with communities long before our AVs start carrying passengers to their destinations.

Of course, engaging with the community isn’t a one-time event. For that matter, we work in phases to make sure we can coordinate and communicate with all sorts of people.

Phase 1: Primary and secondary stakeholders

Our first touchpoint is often with city officials, transit authorities, first responders and business owners. This is when we can begin educating our partners and customers on what we do and how the service works. But education is a two-way street. During these first meetings, we have the opportunity to learn more about the communities we aim to serve, address safety concerns alongside first responders and then collaborate on how to best address transportation challenges.

After local leadership fully embraces our vision and recognizes the positive impact we can make, it comes time to educate secondary stakeholders. These are the city and transit authority staff that will often be involved both during preparation and after launch. Secondary stakeholders are some of our biggest advocates to the public. They are the ones who are championing the cause, helping to get future riders informed, excited and ready to talk about how our autonomous transit service can enhance public transit systems, transform cities and ultimately improve lives.

Phase 2: Our future riders

Success is impossible without the support of the community at large. Once primary and secondary stakeholders are engaged, the excitement for innovation is contagious. After learning about how May Mobility’s service and technology improve transportation accessibility, convenience and sustainability, it’s hard not to shout it from the rooftops. Working together, we go out into the public to get them excited about May Mobility’s autonomous transit service. This involves educational opportunities, fun events and sometimes a bit of swag. Most people have never been up close to an autonomous vehicle, and even fewer have ridden in one. By engaging early on with the communities where we will deploy, our future riders get hands-on experience with our AVs through demos and attain a basic understanding of how they work and the benefits of riding with May Mobility.

Just like in Phase 1, interacting with our future riders is a two-way conversation. We want them to get involved in the planning, when possible. Additionally, we work with the city and others to establish listening sessions and focus groups. These conversations give us a chance to do some basic education, but more importantly, they allow us to get a better grasp on what people are worried about, what they are looking forward to, and how they hope to benefit from autonomous transit options. As we create ways to elicit rider feedback for each of our deployments, everyone benefits.

Phase 3: Launch and beyond

Once we are ready to move forward with the launch, our work doesn’t stop there. The flow of feedback doesn’t stop either. We continue to look to our customers and riders to help us improve our service. Sometimes that means new stops need to be integrated, existing ones adjusted or plans for an expansion be made. Feedback can also help us to take a look at how our AVs are navigating and make improvements so that travel is more efficient. That feedback can also sometimes be used to inform our city and transit partners about areas where the infrastructure could potentially be improved, and in the end, we all benefit from these open channels of communication.

Additionally, the fun doesn’t end just because we’ve launched. We love staying involved in the community. In Arlington, Texas you might see one of our AVs in a parade, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan we help bring people to the annual art fair. We look forward to the opportunities to meet more people and introduce them to the future we envision with autonomous vehicles. We want to talk to everyone and ask questions. We are listening and we hear you.

Our goal is to improve transportation wherever we deploy and to provide a solution to people’s mobility challenges. We want to help people who aren’t being adequately helped and working together with primary stakeholders, secondary stakeholders and community residents, we can pinpoint the areas where we are needed most. So, please, speak up. Let your voice be heard and let’s create a world where transportation is safer, more equitable and, yes, even fun.