Transparency around data will set brands apart.
Safety has long been a key differentiator for automotive brands — especially for women and families. However, many women are still concerned about how autonomous cars will behave when emergency situations arise, and how the technology will handle itself. Autonomous rideshare providers will have to go the extra mile to ensure all their passengers feel safe during their travels. Through our research, Teague has learned brand reputation is a key component in making people feel more safe and confident in autonomous vehicles. In order to build trust in rideshare brands, the experiences they’re providing must be designed for transparency.
In the future, the choice of which rideshare operator to go with may be more about how well a fleet operates: the number of incidents, the accident rate, the amount of miles it has “driven” as a collective, how quickly it can reroute, or how smooth the drive is based on what the algorithm has learned. Sharing fleet-level operational data with the public would allow brands to build trust and set themselves apart.
Uber and Lyft have constantly been under fire for their troublesome privacy policies, from always-on location tracking to “God View” scandals. Brands will have to rethink how transparent they are with customers and the information they’re collecting from them. People are trading more information now than ever before for personalized services, and autonomous systems would be capable of gathering even more extensive amounts of data. Companies can get ahead of the curve through candor and by educating passengers on just what their systems are doing with the data they’re collecting. Even better, brands should consider letting users decide exactly what aspects of their data shadow they would like to allow the AI and machine learning to have access to.
The future is coming fast, this time we can do things right.
While many of these problems seem like a distant concern, for the vast majority of women—and other vulnerable groups—the transit system we know and use today already needs significant improvements. There is a lack of inclusiveness and diversity throughout the planning, implementation, and operation of the system, and without proper thought, this will extend into our transportation of tomorrow.
The promise of autonomous vehicles is to provide safer mobility for all, so it’s crucial for everyone to play a part in designing and testing them. We urge businesses to invite more women and underrepresented groups to work together on these problems. Now more than ever, we must challenge what we have come to accept in current mobility services. And this time, get it right.