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Autonomous vehicles and employment: An urban futures revolution or

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DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2021.103203

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 Cities 114 (2021) 103203

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Autonomous vehicles and employment: An urban futures revolution

or catastrophe?
Alexandros Nikitas *, Alexandra-Elena Vitel, Corneliu Cotet
Department of Logistics, Marketing, Hospitality and Analytics, Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, HD1 3DH Huddersfield, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Paradigm-shifting technologies such as Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) despite a wealth of promised benefits for the
Autonomous vehicles future of our cities may generate new unprecedented threats. The transportation industry will be the first to
Driverless urban futures experience the aftermath of AVs since these can kill driving professions and create new layers of employability-
Employment
related social exclusion. This paper appraises public perceptions of AVs and their employment repercussions as a
Labour market disruption
Skill demand
forecasting tool that can drive equitable policy planning that prioritises humans over machines. The study is
based on an online survey of 773 responses from an international audience. Descriptive statistics and ordinal
regression modelling have been used. Most respondents recognised that the arrival of AVs is likely to revolu­
tionise the distribution of jobs within the transport industry. They also believe governments are not prepared for
the transformations AVs will force upon workplace arenas. Age, field of work/study, level of understanding AVs,
income, gender, awareness about the risks on own employment were factors influencing the respondents’ per­
ceptions of whether transport professionals’ job security will be jeopardised. The study argues that AVs are
perceived as a significant employment disruptor and that reskilling, public engagement and awareness exercises
should be widely adopted by the stakeholders ‘responsible’ for the transition.

1. Introduction
The unprecedented progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ro­
botics over the last two decades and the continuous cost reductions in
technology production empowered innovation adoption in every in­
dustry and occupation. Driverless vehicles are the automotive industry’s
response to autonomous technology innovation, emerging as a culture-
shifting intervention destined to change the way mobility is perceived
and the way cities function (Gavanas, 2019; Milakis et al., 2017; Tho­
mopoulos & Givoni, 2015). According to the driverless paradigm, the
human driver will no longer be the epicentre of driving but will be
replaced by powerful safety-enhancing autopilots. Adopting driverless
vehicles means that human driver errors that have been the leading root
for road traffic accidents for a century now (Crayton & Meier, 2017;
Waldrop, 2015) will be eliminated. Driverless technologies could also
potentially, as Nikitas et al. (2020) suggests, improve accessibility, in-
vehicle riding experience, energy savings, car-sharing and ride-sharing
business models and reduce traffic congestion, environmental degra­
dation, air pollution, noise nuisance and social exclusion for those
currently unable to drive. For these reasons, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)
and Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are widely projected
to become the cornerstone of smart urban transport systems (Nikitas
et al., 2017; Papa & Ferreira, 2018) and one of the prime areas for
research and development investments in urban planning (Arakawa
et al., 2018; Knowles et al., 2020; Strand et al., 2014). However, AV-
related impacts constitute an uncharted territory and many gaps exist
in understanding how this transition will be managed (Csiszár & Földes,
2018; Földes et al., 2018; Földes & Csiszár, 2016).
The notion of an AV, by definition, refers to vehicles that operate in
the absence of any human involvement (Nikitas et al., 2019). Autono­
mous driving currently entails six varying levels of automation: Level
0 refers to standard vehicles without automated driving functions while
Level 5 refers to self-driving cars capable of completing the full dynamic
driving activity deprived of limitations (Skeete, 2018). Today, AVs are
still on the path to realise their full driving potential (Katrakazas et al.,
2015) but there is already fierce competition, particularly among
automotive manufacturers, for fulfilling the promise of fully developed
automation.
CAVs are likely to be the most captivating, innovative but also
disruptive development that ever happened in the field of mobility

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: a.nikitas@hud.ac.uk (A. Nikitas).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103203
Received 23 August 2020; Received in revised form 8 December 2020; Accepted 18 March 2021
Available online 14 April 2021
0264-2751/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
A. Nikitas et al.
(Bansal et al., 2016; Nikitas et al., 2017). Today, driverless vehicles are
not a fiction anymore (Bansal et al., 2016; Hancock et al., 2019). AVs,
usually under close human supervision (i.e. human pilots are on board
ready to take over control in emergency situations) and in segregated
conditions are trialled worldwide, to test whether they can function
effectively in complex scenarios (Nikitas et al., 2017). In part, the recent
breakthrough in AI technology has fuelled hopes that self-driving ve­
hicles may be seen on the roads in the nearby future. By 2050, the
overall worldwide passenger economy of self-driving vehicles is pre­
dicted to reach 7 trillion (Wang et al., 2018) with governments in USA,
UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand actively supporting already
their research and development (Nikitas et al., 2019). Eventually, AVs
will cultivate a novel sector of mobility, having much more profound
influences than the simple replacement of present-day cars.
Nonetheless, foreseeing how AVs may fundamentally transform the
future of cities and societies, is a strenuous and conflicting process
(González-González et al., 2019). This explains the inconsistent and
discordant interpretations about where AV technology is heading. Even
if the potential to see AVs driving on well-defined and pre-determined
pathways in a handful of years is highly likely, CAVs capable of taking
individuals from their household to any place and vice versa whatever
the weather and in uncertain road traffic conditions is a more distant
future. A fully autonomous driving future involves a longer time span
and substantial effort that goes beyond technology per se reflecting and
affecting legal, moral, education and business aspects among others.
Despite their immense potential for positive change, AVs could also
generate immense challenges (Bergmann et al., 2018) that include ac­
cording to Nikitas et al. (2020) and Liu et al. (2020): increased vulner­
ability to hacking, software and hardware flaws; loss of privacy and
travel data exploitation; liability allocation challenges; increased car
usage from more populations and unoccupied vehicles; increased traffic
accident rates during the transition period when CAVs will co-exist with
simpler AVs, semi-autonomous and conventional vehicles; more
pollutant emissions; behavioural adaption, situational awareness and
user resistance problems; and more importantly for the context of this
research labour market disruption. Undertaking premature, yet inclu­
sive investigation and appraisal about the future dangers of self-driving
is imperative for responsible research and innovation (European Com­
mission, 2014) and can have a decisive influence on individuals and
societies’ agreement or disagreement with AVs wide-scale imple­
mentation (Maurer et al., 2016). At present there is very little known
about the nature, magnitude and severity of the AV-related impacts on
labour market (Frisoni et al., 2016).
Typically, socio-technological innovations have implications for the
working world. Automation, in general, changed employment through
job destruction, changing working requirements and flexibility, as well
as standardisation (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018). Frey and Osborne (2017)
estimate that around 47% of total US employment is in the high-risk
category over the next two decades because of the computerisation
phenomenon including all the jobs related to the transport and logistics
industry. Thus, the introduction of AVs has the potential as Pettigrew
et al. (2018) suggested to completely disrupt employment as known
now. This means that the general public attitudes about AVs may
oscillate between enthusiasm and doubt (Kyriakidis et al., 2015); doubt
regarding not only technical fixes, but also regarding the possible
employment disruption that AVs could convey (Acheampong & Cugur­
ullo, 2019).
Historically, technological developments usually end up generating
more jobs (Halteh et al., 2018) but in the short-term are perceived as
‘creative destructions’ and ‘force change’ (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018).
Although substantial disruption is often the consequent effect, on the
opposite spectrum arise new opportunities. For instance, today, because
of technology’s creative destruction effect on employment, a New York
investment bank employee could be easily living and working in Van­
couver, instead of moving to New York (Messer, 2010). AI is omni­
present in people’s lives via internet and smartphones, and especially in
2
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
developed countries most employees interact daily with computers, as
well as robotic devices (Halteh et al., 2018). However, web and mobile
app developers, social media designers, and other intelligence-related
professions constitute a still surprisingly small segment of the total
employment needs and refer to roles typically linked with high-tech
specialisations. The recently established techno-economic model in­
flicts new patterns of work at both intellectual and physical levels,
challenging the old-fashioned production norms and producing consis­
tent mistrust (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018). It may thus be argued that
automation developments might entail a significantly more pronounced
effect on employment than what has ever been recorded before,
increasing concerns that mass redundancies will prevail over job
creation.
Research also predicts that there will be a significant mismatch be­
tween today’s required employee skillset and the one needed in an AI-
defined era (Snyder, 2016). Thus, studies looking into exploring these
new skillsets and helping societies, industries and authorities to recali­
brate their employment needs are of crucial importance. However, it is
problematic to inform policy-making in the absence of concrete social
preference data reflecting and affecting AV scenarios (Lu et al., 2017).
This study aims to examine the public perceptions of the effects that
the introduction of AVs will generate to employment in the transport
and logistics industry. More specifically, the paper intends to:
(i) identify people’s perceptions of the after-effects of a full-scale AV
launch on employment,
(ii) identify new opportunities and challenges that will arise and
skills that will be sought after once AVs will be fully launched,
(iii) provide policy recommendations about how to ease labour mar­
ket disruption for the societies, in general, and those employed by
the transport sector, in particular, after the transition to an
automated transport paradigm.
Henceforth, the study presents: an overview of the limited AVs and
employment literature, a description of the method employed, a sys­
tematic examination of the results, a discussion benchmarking our key
findings against the literature that includes policy and industry recom­
mendations, limitation acknowledgement and future research directions
and a conclusion section which discusses our main contributions.
2. The arrival of AVs and the future employment landscape
The employment impact of AVs is widely debated. The ‘self-driving
vehicle’ concept per se stimulates human cognisance to suppose that it
will convey a full replacement of industrial employment, rather than
simply supply assistance (Ransbotham, 2017). According to Duarte and
Ratti (2018), AVs will liberate car users from their driving duty, and be a
driving force for transitioning to new ways of living in cities. As busi­
nesses pursue constant advances in transport efficiency, the commercial
vehicle sector including taxis, ride-sourcing and trucking are expected to
be amid the first adopters of self-driving technology (Wadud, 2017).
This is because commercial transport firms will be able to carry more
people and goods at lower costs, and for longer times, producing positive
economic paybacks (Tomita, 2017). Currie (2018) also suggests that
70% of bus costs are drivers, so theoretically, costs can be reduced and
service levels enhanced with automated bus services. This implies that
professional drivers will be among the first to face the employment
consequences of automation (Haratsis et al., 2018) especially if Shared
Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) transform the notion of travel from one
that is largely catered by privately held personal vehicles and conven­
tionally shared/hired vehicles to fleet services by driverless, demand-
responsive vehicles, on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis (Fagnant
& Kockelman, 2014, 2018). In the end, every business tied to transport
might be disrupted (Cohen & Hopkins, 2019) even if AVs, in the form of
the direct descendants of conventional cars, will only be adopted as first-
and last mile neighbourhood feeders of automated mass transit systems
A. Nikitas et al.
in Mobility-as-a-Service schemes (Alyavina et al., 2020; Knowles et al.,
2020).
The dystopian forecast pictures historic employment disruption after
the establishment of AVs as the norm, with mass job losses, cheap la­
bour, and increased control (Halteh et al., 2018; Litman, 2017). Massive
employment disruption is also foreseen in vehicle manufacturing, rental,
finance, retail and petrol stations, as well as road transport support in­
dustries (Davidson & Spinoulas, 2015) especially if SAVs prevail
meaning that car fleets will be significantly reduced (Narayanan et al.,
2020) providing lower fares to service users (Martinez et al., 2015). AVs
are projected to reduce expenses on compulsory vehicle-related insur­
ance policies (Fagnant & Kockelman, 2015), overhaul facilities (Tomita,
2017), road traffic police forces, parking inspection provision, legal
service providers (Davidson & Spinoulas, 2015), auto-repair industries
and medical and emergency services (Clements & Kockelman, 2017).
The increased road efficiency of AVs, in the long-term, might reduce the
need for future transport infrastructure, thus reducing jobs in road
construction, engineering and perhaps transport planning and model­
ling (Davidson & Spinoulas, 2015); however the transition to AVs will
require huge investments in creating smarter road infrastructure
compatible to AVs meaning that millions of jobs will be created in the
short- and medium-term for building an AV-enabling road eco-system.
As a whole, once robot technologies develop into independent em­
ployees, as opposed to merely complementary utensils for human
assistance, worldwide professions could be substantially reduced (Hal­
teh et al., 2018). For instance, the growth of Robot Process Automation
(RPA), such as self-service checkout machines in super markets, may
reduce the need for human cashiers despite well-documented problems
that may prevent that to some degree such as theft, customer satisfaction
and dealing with jams that Andrews (2018) reports. This trend could be
similarly applied to the transportation industry. As most employees
perform daily tasks that are repetitive and monotonous, a great gap can
be immediately highlighted between old skills and new skills required
for emerging positions (Snyder, 2016). Due to the rise of AI and machine
learning, repetitive jobs based on blue-collar skillsets will be at a bigger
danger to be automated. The primary occupations at risk of disappearing
are driving jobs, especially for buses, taxis, trucks (Davidson & Spi­
noulas, 2015), whose jobs usually reward salaries above the minimum
income, and entail no prerequisite for a college degree (Snyder, 2016).
Motor vehicle operators tend to be older, less educated, and with more
limited transferable skills than other employees (Beede et al., 2017).
By 2035, 75% of the total global light-duty-vehicles sales will refer to
self-driving vehicles (Bansal et al., 2016) meaning that professional
driving jobs will need to go down. The jobs that will be available might
be divided (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018) to a limited number of privileged,
highly expert, and leading roles and to low-paid, low-skill professions
which may benefit from delayed automation (Halteh et al., 2018). These
days, virtually all industries aim to employ individuals capable of un­
derstanding and studying data to solve business issues, meaning that
emerging careers will include statisticians, software designers and en­
gineers (Gano, 2018). Besides, businesses might radically shift their
corporate models to open various new profitable services including on-
board retailing, catering and even entertaining activities (Litman,
2017). However, many blue-collar staff losing their job in the AV-
induced labour market disruption will not be able to take on such
advanced professions.
Typically, employees who have not enhanced their skillsets might
find themselves in extremely low-paid positions. But it is likely that
affected personnel will expect their occupations to be substituted with
jobs that can pay comparable wages (Snyder, 2016). Thus, considerate
efforts to create new career opportunities and to requalify individuals
for new-fangled jobs are necessary (Grunwald, 2016; Pettigrew et al.,
2018). Notably, leading corporations including Google, Facebook, Nvi­
dia and BMW have started to acknowledge emergent career options in
radical technologies, for example AI, machine learning, AVs, robotics
engineering, data science and mobile developments. At present, these
3
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
firms and other technology-centric firms are investing in on-going
training and development in the direction of the aforementioned
arenas; requalifying the workforce favouring professional roles per­
forming non-routine problem-solving and complex communications
tasks (Autor et al., 2003) is a pro-active solution for the employment
disruption, able to diminish the risk of redundancy (Taeihagh & Lim,
2019). Yet, imagining that the entire labour force can be requalified to
perform jobs in line with AVs may be idealistic and impractical. In
general, at recent times and across the business world well-educated
staff are more desirable than less-educated ones; according to
Broersma et al. (2016) beyond the direct private returns of education,
there is evidence of positive human capital externalities at the level of
regions and firms.
Identifying the jobs that are at risk of elimination may be an easier
task than identifying the newly generated opportunities, but this new
labour market is also an important criterion when trying to assess the
impact of AVs in employment as a whole. Examples of revolutionary
web-based platforms that generated new types of occupations and defied
traditional beliefs about the working life include Amazon, Airbnb, and
Uber (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018). The examples prove that technological
change often creates newly discovered and unexpected jobs; the actu­
ality of job losses receives much consideration, while the reality of new
jobs is often disregarded. When the internet became accessible to the
public, the emerging career openings for search engine optimisers,
mobile app designers, social media executives, among other recent jobs
were not foreseen. Thus, it can be argued that this may similarly happen
with AVs.
Conversely, Nathan and Ahmed (2018) found that those who profit
from the new career options are rarely those losing their outdated pro­
fessions. The replacement of the horse-cart with the automobile is an
illustrative example of the consequences of a similar revolution. Driv­
erless vehicles could let human drivers without a job, just as it happened
in the case of the horse and the horseless carriage (Hancock et al., 2019).
The carriage possessors were not among the first manufacturers of
railways and the same can be argued about workers; horse riders did not
turn out to be car drivers, such as top typesetters did not turn out to be
the text writers in electronic printing (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018).
Skills that are based on profound human communication are likely to
be valued more, meaning that several individuals will have the chance to
succeed by developing these qualities (Pettigrew et al., 2018). Messer
(2010) supported a similar argument, noting that along with the ex­
pected increase in organisational demand for knowledgeable individuals
will come the awareness that in the 21st century, knowledge is the new-
fangled capital. While it is true that novel career options will arise for
proficient people (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018), it is questionable whether
these new-fangled roles will be sufficient to even out the entirety of the
lost job market, even if most employees would be successfully reskilled.
If the introduction of AVs fulfils its purpose, human driving could be
obstructed after 2060 (Bansal et al., 2016). Three years following Uber
and Lyft’s arrival, taxi rides reduced by 30% in Los Angeles (Nathan &
Ahmed, 2018). Following Uber’s intention to replace human drivers
with a fleet of self-driving vehicles the research should not solely
concentrate on understanding trust-building for the autonomous tech­
nologies, but to also investigate whether people will still have a pro­
fession after a transition period. Ransbotham (2017) claimed that even
though driving jobs would be no longer needed, and all human industry-
related jobs will be replaced by machines, reducing the myriad abilities
of humans to only a few quintessential attributes that can absolutely be
replaced is short-sighted and maybe inaccurate. Assuming that whole
occupations rather than single job-tasks are automated by technology
might lead to an overestimation of job automatibility, as occupations
labelled as high-risk occupations often still contain a substantial share of
tasks that are hard to automate (Arntz et al., 2016). As Uber’s trials in
Pittsburgh proved, it is expected that drivers will still be needed to su­
pervise AVs and CAVs until they are fully functionable. The shift from
specialised human drivers is expected to progress gradually (Cohen &
A. Nikitas et al.
Hopkins, 2019); research forecasts suggest that the future automobile
fleet will be near homogenous no sooner than 2050 if nothing changes
drastically (Talebian & Mishra, 2018). So, in some cases, in the short-
and mid-term at least, rather than being fully substituted, most occu­
pations might be gradually improved (Ransbotham, 2017), simplifying
human jobs (Messer, 2010). Overall, Arntz et al. (2016) found that, on
average across the 21 OECD countries, only 9% of jobs are fully
automatable.
Despite its importance for future policy planning there is a surprising
scarcity of primary data research in the field of AVs and employment.
The very few earlier studies about AVs’ after-effects on employment
have typically focused on both employment and social issues, suggesting
that there is a strong chance that the employment impact of AVs will be
the initial stage of a more profound social change. However, these
studies often have a key limitation; they only have nation-wide coverage
and scope and thus cannot be easily standardised and generalised to a
broader context. This paper tries to address this research gap aiming to
develop a broader understanding that goes beyond national statistic
specifics and correlations and concentrates on the key concepts under­
pinning the expectations and attitudes per se of the general public with a
special focus on people working in the soon-to-be-transformed, in one
way or another, transport sector.
3. Research methodology
As every individual perceives the world from specific social settings,
or according to particular predispositions, applied social research pro­
vides tools to collect, analyse and synthesise these and produce valid
scientific results (Abbott & McKinney, 2013). Surveys are robust data
collection tools prevalent in transport planning research because of their
ability to establish causal explanations of conditions so that greater
understanding of attitudinal and behavioural phenomena may be ob­
tained (Richardson et al., 1995). Provided that have been planned,
executed and reported systematically surveys can yield reliable and
generalisable results (Kelley et al., 2003).
A quantitative online survey was employed for capturing people’s
perceptions of how the introduction of AVs will affect employment.
Collecting and analysing data as such can lead to findings that can guide
policy-makers on how to ease the transition to an automated transport
system primarily for those employed by the sector, who are likely to be
the most affected by this paradigm shift.
The survey included 33 questions and the average time required to
complete it was 10 min. The questions were organised in six thematic
sections namely: the respondents’ awareness about the effects of automation
on industry; legal concerns; general trust; employment concerns; economic
paybacks and industry-specific aftershocks; and demographic characteristics.
Respondents were asked to assess AV technology as both an employment
creator and disruptor. Five-point Likert-scales with a neutral mid-point
ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ were used for con­
sistency reasons. The use of the ordinal scale extended the choice of
statistical methods that could be applied to the data (Leedy & Ormrod,
2015). The Likert-scale format was used for all statements, apart from
demographics. The set of demographic variables collected referred to
gender, age group, educational background, field of study or work,
household annual income and level of understanding AVs. Industries
represented by the respondents included public sector, transport, lo­
gistics, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, finance and IT. A final cate­
gory named ‘other’ referred to all the other sectors. The survey had an
introductory message to prompt participation that clearly articulated
the aim of the research project, its ambition to generate policy recom­
mendations and the confidential, anonymous and responsible use of the
participant input.
The survey was available to the public in an online form through the
Qualtrics platform. To increase response rates, financial incentives were
applied, including the entry into a prize-draw for three £25 shopping
vouchers. The survey was distributed electronically through social
4
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
media platforms such as LinkedIn, being sent directly to more than 2000
members of the public (i.e. non-probability convenience sampling).
Digital data collection offered the opportunity to reach a larger pool of
respondents by expanding the research scope internationally, thus col­
lecting a greater volume of empirical data faster. As argued by Abbott
and McKinney (2013), a bigger sample is typically appraised as being
more statistically meaningful. Our data collection was conducted over a
six-week period during February/March 2019 and potential respondents
were contacted daily during this timescale.
Several directly recruited participants recommended other people
who could be potentially interested to participate, thus a level of
snowball sampling existed. To stop people from taking the survey more
than once and ensure the data is reliable, the choice of preventing ballot
box stuffing was ticked. No specific segment of the population was
particularly targeted; we made sure however that transport pro­
fessionals were a significant part of the sample. The study had no
geographical constraints, allowing the worldwide distribution of the
survey. Data were collected from 50 countries, including UK, France,
Italy, Germany, Romania, USA, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among others. There was no
deliberate effort to represent any single country per se in the sampling;
we aimed to create a study that went beyond national specifics. The
finalised sample included 773 fully usable responses.
SPSS version 24 was used for our statistical analysis. Descriptive
analysis and ordinal regression modelling have helped to interpret the
data. Specifically, ordinal regression modelling helped to forecast cu­
mulative odds for distinct groups of variables (McCormick et al., 2017),
predicting the dependence levels between a series of key variables,
untangling, and justifying the relationship between selected assump­
tions (Abbott & McKinney, 2013). The underpinning hypothesis that is
tested by the survey suggests that people’s perceptions of job losses in
the transport sector relate to their understanding of AVs, their concerns
about their own employment, and their individual background
characteristics.
4. Results
The findings are organised in line with the six themes of the survey.
Namely, the respondent demographics, their awareness, trust, employ­
ment concerns, legal concerns, economic paybacks, and industry-
specific aftershocks.
4.1. Sample demographics
Table 1 provides a summary of the demographic characteristics
describing the sample. The sample consisted of 64.6% male respondents
and 35.4% female respondents. This is not a balanced sample when
thinking of general population statistics where we have a 50/50 gender
split but one that factored the over-representation of the transport and
logistics professionals for whom the gender split is 80/20 or worse
(European Commission, 2018). In terms of annual household income
findings, 35.4% of respondents earn £50,000 or over, while 34.4% of
respondents earn below £29,999. Overall, respondents agreed to specify
their annual income; only 16.8% of them did not reveal these figures.
The people most willing to take part in the survey were aged between
18 and 34. People aged between 35 and 44 accounted for 18.4% of the
sample while people aged between 45 and 54 accounted for 15.9% of it.
Respondents aged between 55 and 64 represented 8.2% of the final
sample. Respondents aged 65 and over were not particularly inclined to
take part in the survey, referring to only 2.3% of the responses. In their
case, it can be assumed that older people did not have the opportunity or
accessibility to reply via the internet-based platform and that the atti­
tude object of the survey (i.e. AVs and future employment effects) was
not relevant to them since most people in this age group will not be in
the labour market when AVs arrive. This minimal involvement of older
people in the study is in line with other samples dealing with attitude
A. Nikitas et al. Cities 114 (2021) 103203

Table 1 two countries have an enormous interest in AV development (Haratsis

Sample’s demographic profile. et al., 2018; Pettigrew et al., 2018). By mixing opinions from different
Demographic characteristics Sample’s specifics nations together, the study strengthens the universal understanding of
people’s perceptions of the AVs and employment dilemma. It is
Gender Male: 64.6%
Female: 35.4% acknowledged that our samples from each country are not sufficient
Age group Under 18: 0.9% enough to represent each country per se; this was never the intention of
18–24: 27.2% the present study.
25–34: 27.2% Finally, the level of understanding AVs was recorded, as specified by
35–44: 18.4%
45–54: 15.9%
the respondents. Data on understanding could be highly susceptible to
55–64: 8.2% the respondents’ individual self-assessments and thus contain some de­
65–74: 1.9% gree of bias. Overall, 69.5% of the respondents self-described themselves
75–84: 0.4% as informed to some extent. About 19.4% of the respondents self-
Educational background Less than high school: 3.4%
described themselves as being neither informed nor uninformed. Only
High school graduate: 21.1%
Bachelor’s degree: 37.0% 11.1% of the respondents assessed themselves as uninformed. As the
Master’s degree: 30.7% survey was distributed internationally, it can be hypothesised that cul­
Doctorate: 7.9% tural differences might have influenced how people perceived the Likert
Field of study or work Public sector: 11.1% scale (Lee et al., 2002). In fact, this type of measurement produces es­
Transport: 29.5%
Logistics: 10.2%
timates rather than true values (Ruane, 2016). The under-representation
Manufacturing: 5.7% of uninformed people is compatible with the outcomes of other studies
Retail: 2.1% on AVs and employment (Haratsis et al., 2018), showing that people
Healthcare: 5.2% with more knowledge of the topic are naturally more involved and
Financial: 5.2%
committed to the attempts seeking to understand public perceptions.
IT: 8.5%
Other: 22.5%
Household annual income Less than £14,999: 17.3% 4.2. Perceptions of the industry after-effects of automation
£15,000–£29,999: 17.1%
£30,000-49,999: 13.3% To understand the respondents’ awareness of the effects of auto­
£50,000 or over: 35.4%
Prefer not to say: 16.8%
mation on the industry, data was collected regarding agreement with
Level of understanding AVs Highly informed: 12.3% four specific statements. Table 2 outlines these results. Most respondents
Well informed: 37.5% agreed that automation has had a positive impact not only on the in­
Informed: 19.7% dustry but also on society. For this scenario, a chi-square analysis sug­
Neither informed or uniformed: 19.4%
gests that there are statistically significant differences between the
Uninformed: 11.1%
agreement rates of this notion and the respondents’ level of AV under­
standing. The more informed respondents are, the more likely they are
objects not linked with their immediate interests (e.g. bike-sharing as to agree that automation has had a positive impact both on the industry
presented in Nikitas, 2018 and Nikitas et al., 2016). Recent research and society (χ2 = 64.203, df = 16, p < 0.05).
highlights the scarcity of studies and the limited understanding of the Elevated levels of agreement have been reported for the notion that
needs of older people towards AVs (Pettigrew et al., 2019; Shergold ‘automation of the transport industry will follow the path of other
et al., 2015) and their potential for now to see less advantage in driv­ automated industries’. There are statistically significant differences be­
erless cars than others (Hudson et al., 2019). tween the agreement rates of this notion and the respondents’ field of
Most of the respondents had a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree. work/study (χ2 = 60.021, df = 32, p < 0.05). Respondents studying or
Respondents educated at doctorate level represented 7.9% of the sam­ working in the IT industry followed by those associated with the
ple. This indicates that the sample was well educated. Only a quarter of financial industry are by far the ones most likely to agree with the
the sample participants had high school education or less. The most statement. This suggests that the more IT-literate people are, the more
prevalent fields of study or work of respondents were transport, public likely they are to think that the automation of the transport industry will
sector, logistics and accounting; they represented 50.8% of the sample. follow the footsteps of other automation-enabled industries, facing
The IT, manufacturing, financial, healthcare and retail industries similar improvements and challenges. Another interpretation could be
accounted for about 26.7% of the sample combined while all the re­ that respondents are more likely to agree with the statement if they are
spondents from unspecified industries were considered in the ‘other’ part of an industry which faced large-scale automation in the past. Re­
category, which accounted for the remaining 22.5% of the sample. These spondents from the transport industry are the category with the smallest
figures mean that the study sample over-represents people with white- percentage of agreement after the public sector, showing that transport
collar potential and people associated with transport and logistics pro­ professionals are more likely to feel that the automation of the transport
fessions. The latter was an intentional feature of the research design
since these people could have yielded very insightful responses on the Table 2
subject. Blue-collar workers were unintentionally under-represented Perceptions of the likely outcomes of automation on the industry.
possibly due to the online nature of the survey but also because of Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly
their possible inability or unwillingness to engage with the study and its agree)
objectives to the same degree as people with more academic skills (i.e. Perceptions regarding people’s awareness of the likely outcomes of AVs
the complexity of and uncertainty around the attitude object might have
caused these people to stay away from the survey). Driverless
Most of the respondents were from the UK, Romania, Italy, USA, Automation has The automation of transportation will Changes in the
had a positive the transport generate not only transport
Australia, and New Zealand. Disseminating the survey irrespective of
impact not only industry will safer, more industry will
geographical boundaries allowed the collection of a more inclusive set of on the industry follow the path of optimised, but also start a domino
views, rather than focusing on a single country. Notably, the consider­ but also on other automated considerably effect on other
able number of respondents from Australia and New Zealand reflect and society. industries. cheaper transport sectors.
support the literature reviewed for this research, which found that these services.
1.00 (SD 0.91) 0.75 (SD 1.00) 0.70 (SD 1.10) 0.83 (SD 0.93)

5
A. Nikitas et al.
industry might entail a completely different path than the automation of
other industries. Many respondents were inclined to agree with the idea
that driverless transportation will help delivering safer, more optimised,
and cheaper transport services. Likewise, when asked to assess if
‘changes in the transport industry will start a domino effect on other
sectors’, most respondents tended to agree.
4.3. Perceptions referring to legal and general trust concerns
Many respondents disagreed that governments are prepared to face
the challenges AVs will convey and agreed that they should create a
legal framework to protect the employees at risk. The more informed
people are about AVs, the more likely they were to disagree with this
assertion (χ2 = 31.886, df = 16, p < 0.05). An even larger number of
respondents supported the statement suggesting that companies which
undergo changes should take the responsibility to offer new opportu­
nities and train the affected employees. This is supported by the mean
value, which in this case was the closest to strongly agree (see Table 3).
A chi-square analysis for this scenario found the relationship be­
tween respondents’ agreement rates and their household annual income
to be statistically significant (χ2 = 26.780, df = 16, p < 0.05). The less
money respondents earn, the more likely they are to agree that com­
panies should be responsible for providing new training and opportu­
nities. Even so, this group still approved that authorities should balance
job losses by creating new opportunities in other sectors. This outcome
implies that the industrial strategy of governments should concentrate
on enhancing skills and efficiency in industries at risk of facing job losses
after automation.
Respondents were inclined to accept that automation can generate
massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a chain of unsolved
dilemmas. A chi-square analysis showed a statistical significance be­
tween the agreement levels of this scenario among people who are
highly informed about AVs versus uninformed people respectively (χ2 =
56.251, df = 16, p < 0.05). Highly informed respondents were more
inclined to agree than those who are less informed, meaning that
eventually uninformed people are the least likely to believe that auto­
mation can be a disruptor. According to this outcome, the more
knowledge people have about AVs, the more likely they are to believe
that automation can generate disruption. So, lack of AV awareness could
make people underestimate the disruptive nature of an autonomous
transport.
Most people agreed that in an automated transport scenery, people
will still have the responsibility to control safety functions, while also
supporting the assumption that the ageing population lacks trust in the
driverless technology. A chi-square analysis determined that the level of
understanding AVs changes the respondents’ perceptions regarding
safety (χ2 = 35.049, df = 16, p < 0.05). Respondents that are more
informed about AVs tend to disagree more with the notion that safety
Table 3
Perceptions of legal concerns.
Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly
agree)
Perceptions regarding legal concerns related to the introduction of AVs
Governments If working If working
are prepared requirements in requirements will
for the the transport change, the
changes AVs sector will change, companies which
will bring. the government undergo changes
should create a should offer new
legal framework opportunities,
that protects the taking
affected citizens. responsibility for
training the
affected
employees.
− 0.65 (SD 1.13) 0.95 (SD 1.05) 1.10 (SD 0.95)
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
will remain the responsibility of humans than those who are unin­
formed. This implies that the more informed individuals are more aware
and perhaps more willing to accept that safety functions will be un­
dertaken by vehicles.
Tables 3 and 4 provide the sample’s mean support for perceptions of
legal and general trust issues.
4.4. Perceptions of economic paybacks
Public perceptions of potential economic paybacks of AVs are very
important because they reflect views directly linked with key socio-
economic impacts of an automated mobility paradigm. Most re­
spondents believed that AVs will have a positive impact on productivity.
A chi-square analysis indicated that the field of work/study influences
respondents’ perceptions of this statement (χ2 = 57.322, df = 32, p <
0.05). Transport-related professionals were the least likely of the pro­
fessional groups to agree that there will be a positive impact on pro­
ductivity because of AVs; still even then 70% of them were in agreement
with that narrative.
In general, many of our respondents were likely to agree that driv­
erless transportation could reduce office hours and supported the notion
that automation will make transportation a more attractive sector for
employment. On the other hand, our respondents on average marginally
disagreed that AVs are set to rise salaries in the transport industry.
However, more respondents rather agreed than disagreed with the
notion that AVs will fuel a rise of GDP across the world. Apart from the
statement about productivity, the respondents’ perceptions regarding
the potential economic paybacks of AVs are relatively close to the
neutral point as seen in Table 5. Especially on the increase in salaries
throughout the transport industry and the increase in world GDP, 47.3%
and 39.7% of respondents were neutral. These results suggest that
people might hold the belief that the economic benefits of AVs are still
extremely ambiguous so they cannot decide if they will be eventually
positive or negative.
4.5. Perceptions of employment issues and industry-specific aftershocks
The next results reveal the public perceptions of employment con­
cerns (Table 6), the key underpinning theme of this work, and industry-
specific aftershocks (Table 7). Most respondents were inclined to
disbelieve that ‘the introduction of AVs, in particular, and automation,
in general’ will endanger their current or future jobs. In this context, chi-
square analyses show statistical differences among the disagreement
rates between different educational backgrounds (χ2 = 60.700, df = 16,
p < 0.05) and genders (χ2 = 28.881, df = 4, p < 0.05). People with a
higher level of education were less likely to agree that their positions
will be endangered by the introduction of AVs. Less educated people felt
more vulnerable in terms of their job’s post-automation security. This
perception actually reflects the actual reality that blue-collar jobs are
more automatable, and thus in bigger risk, than white-collar ones. Be­
sides, male respondents were significantly more likely to disagree that
their existing or future positions will be at risk from the introduction of
AVs and automation, indicating that female respondents might feel more
vulnerable to employment loss than men.
Authorities should
balance job losses Table 4
by creating new Perceptions of general trust issues.
opportunities in
Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly
other sectors.
agree)
Perceptions regarding trust issues associated with the introduction of AVs
Automation can generate In an automated transport The ageing population
massive challenges that scenery, people will still lacks trust in AVs and
disrupt the world, have the responsibility to driverless technology.
creating a chain of control safety functions.
unsolved dilemmas.
1.00 (SD 1.06) 0.44 (SD 1.10) 0.92 (SD 1.15) 0.95 (SD 0.98)
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A. Nikitas et al. Cities 114 (2021) 103203

Table 5
Perceptions of economic paybacks.
Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly agree)

Perceptions regarding the potential economic paybacks of the introduction of AVs

AVs will have a positive Driverless transportation could Automation will make transportation a AVs are set to rise salaries AVs will help increasing
impact on productivity. reduce office hours. more attractive sector for employment. throughout the entire transport GDP around the world.
industry.
0.98 (SD 1.00) 0.34 (SD 1.18) 0.47 (SD 1.09) − 0.07 (SD 1.06) 0.33 (SD 0.92)

Table 6
Perceptions of employment concerns.
Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly agree)

Perceptions regarding employment concerns associated with the introduction of AVs

The introduction of AVs, in The introduction of Considering the challenges AVs will Automation and AVs Once AVs will be A fair redistribution of
particular, and AVs will put transport bring, more focus should be placed will lead to job losses introduced, non-transport jobs will be the most
automation, in general, professionals’ on preparing personnel for the in the Healthcare industries will suffer from challenging issue of
will put my current or positions at risk. transition, rather than developing industry. employment disruption driverless transportation.
future position at risk. the necessary infrastructure. too.
− 0.64 (SD 1.24) 0.16 (SD 1.31) 0.37 (SD 1.09) 0.11 (SD 1.08) 0.68 (SD 0.96) 0.80 (SD 1.13)

Table 7
Perceptions referring to industry impacts.
Mean support for the statements below (when − 2 strongly disagree and 2 strongly agree)

Perceptions regarding the potential industry effects of the introduction of AVs

The taxi sector will adapt to Companies like Uber are set to have major The Healthcare industry might AVs will affect the Logistics companies are set to be
driverless technology. financial success after the introduction of AVs. benefit from AV technology. insurance industry. more productive and cost-efficient.
0.71 (SD 1.16) 0.76 (SD 1.06) 0.61 (SD 1.01) 1.17 (SD 0.99) 1.11 (SD 0.91)

Many respondents agreed with the notion that the introduction of
AVs will endanger transport professionals’ positions. Chi-square ana­
lyses found statistically significant differences between people’s re­
sponses and their distinct educational backgrounds, household annual
incomes, levels of understanding AVs and age groups respectively. The
level of education has been found to impact how respondents perceive
the relationship between AVs and future employment disruption in the
transport industry (χ2 = 43.510, df = 16, p < 0.05). The more educated
individuals are particularly less likely to agree that the positions of
transport professionals will be threatened by AVs’ introduction. Thus,
higher educated respondents typically reflect more positive views on
this issue when compared to less educated respondents, which are more
likely to be afraid of transport professionals’ job risks. Another statisti­
cally significant difference links agreement rates with respondents’
household annual incomes (χ2 = 76.486, df = 16, p < 0.05). Re­
spondents living in households earning less than £14,999 were more
likely to see this risk than people earning more than that. This suggests
that more affluent people are perhaps less afraid of the introduction of
AVs and the implications to workplace arenas in general and transport
labour market in particular.
The self-reported level of knowledge about AVs also related with
people’s perceptions of whether transport-related jobs could be in
jeopardy (χ2 = 59.325, df = 16, p < 0.05). Many knowledgeable re­
spondents were likely to disagree that transport jobs could be severely
cut down. As a whole, the well-informed respondents expressed a bigger
variety of opinions. Thus, it can be argued that a higher rate of under­
standing does not necessarily tip the scale more towards the positive or
the negative spectrum. Instead, it rather divides the opinions more
equally. Conversely, uninformed respondents were the most likely to
agree that jobs within the transport industry would be at risk after the
introduction of AVs.
Another statistically significant result, referring to the public con­
cerns about AVs and employment, was that age influences the re­
spondents’ answers to this particular context (χ2 = 86.419, df = 28, p <
0.05). The younger and the older generations of respondents hold very
contrasting views. While the younger generation tends to agree that AVs
will threaten transport professionals’ careers, more mature people tend
to disagree more often that this is the case. Nathan and Ahmed (2018)
previously noted that younger people are usually more welcoming to the
new opportunities on the digital job market because of their increased
flexibility, independence, and control. However, this outcome suggests
that although they tend to be more open to technological change,
younger people are also more inclined to perceive the associated risks.
Also, because younger people’s professional career lifecycle will expand
to the next few decades they (or people close to them) are more likely to
be impacted by the introduction of AVs than people who might be
retired before a full launch of AVs is completed.
The sample was also quite evenly split (thus the mean support values
being close to 0) but marginally positive on prioritising the preparation
of the personnel for the AV-centric transition rather than investing on
infrastructure and on feeling that the Healthcare industry could face job
loses. Much closer to 1 were the sample’s mean support for the state­
ments referring to ’AVs eventually imposing challenges to non-transport
industries too’ and to ’fair redistribution of jobs being the most chal­
lenging reality caused by AVs’ (see Table 6).
Perceptions referring to potential industry effects of the introduction
of AVs disclose high agreement rates, as the mean values reflect in
Table 7. Respondents were more inclined to agree that the taxi sector
will adapt to driverless technology and that companies like Uber are set
to have major financial success after AVs will be introduced. They are
also are more likely to believe that the Healthcare industry might benefit
from self-driving technology. However, possibly the strongest result,
directly referring to job losses in the transport industry, was the public’s
agreement to the notion that ‘driverless technology will affect the in­
surance industry’. Specifically, 78.3% of the respondents agreed or
strongly agreed with this idea, only 7.5% disagreed or strongly dis­
agreed whereas 14.2% were neutral respectively. Similarly, most people
agreed that the logistics sector is set to become both more productive
and cost-efficient. About 80.8% of respondents agreed or strongly
agreed with this viewpoint, 6.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed and

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A. Nikitas et al. Cities 114 (2021) 103203

12.8% were neutral.
4.6. Modelling results
Further to the descriptive chi-squared analysis, a statistical model
(Table 8) was developed to quantify the relationship between the re­
spondents’ perceptions of the transport-related jobs vulnerability to an
AV full-scale launch and variables representing some of the survey ele­
ments that could explain this relationship and identify how close and
well-determined it is. Ordinal regression was employed since it is an
appropriate generic model for the empirical analysis of any ordered,
categorical dependent variable, which in this case represented the per­
ceptions of whether the introduction of AVs will put transport pro­
fessionals’ positions at risk.
Other variables and factors have been tested and modelled, but the
combination used in Table 8 was found to be the most relevant, reliable
and robust statistical model in statistical significance and predictive
terms. The analysis classified four response categories to the dependent
variable. These have been reported as 1 being situated between strongly
agree and somewhat agree, 2 between somewhat agree and neutral, 3

Table 8
Ordinal regression model analysing perceptions of the impact of AVs on transport sector employment.
Parameter estimates

Estimate Std. Wald df Sig. ExpB 95% confidence

error interval

Lower Upper
bound bound

Threshold The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles will put transport professionals’ − 4.719 0.570 68.464 1 0.000 0.009 − 5.837 − 3.602
positions at risk = 1
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles will put transport professionals’ − 2.850 0.557 26.202 1 0.000 0.058 − 3.942 − 1.759
positions at risk = 2
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles will put transport professionals’ − 1.972 0.552 12.757 1 0.000 0.139 − 3.053 − 0.890
positions at risk = 3
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles will put transport professionals’ − 0.497 0.548 0.822 1 0.365 0.609 − 1.570 0.577
positions at risk = 4
Location Automation can generate massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a − 1.226 0.368 11.085 1 0.001 0.294 − 1.947 − 0.504
chain of unsolved dilemmas = Strongly agree
Automation can generate massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a − 0.839 0.344 5.953 1 0.015 0.432 − 1.512 − 0.165
chain of unsolved dilemmas = Somewhat agree
Automation can generate massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a − 0.613 0.357 2.942 1 0.086 0.542 − 1.313 0.087
chain of unsolved dilemmas = Neither agree nor disagree
Automation can generate massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a − 0.706 0.356 3.933 1 0.047 0.494 − 1.403 − 0.008
chain of unsolved dilemmas = Somewhat disagree
Automation can generate massive challenges that disrupt the world, creating a 0a 0 0
chain of unsolved dilemmas = Strongly disagree
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, in particular, and Automation, in − 2.295 0.343 44.750 1 0.000 0.101 − 2.968 − 1.623
general, will put my current or future position at risk = Strongly agree
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, in particular, and Automation, in − 1.398 0.217 41.548 1 0.000 0.248 − 1.823 − 0.973
general, will put my current or future position at risk = Somewhat agree
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, in particular, and Automation, in − 0.742 0.191 15.100 1 0.000 0.476 − 1.116 − 0.368
general, will put my current or future position at risk = Neither agree nor
disagree
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, in particular, and Automation, in − 0.541 0.177 9.362 1 0.002 0.582 − 0.888 − 0.195
general, will put my current or future position at risk = Somewhat disagree
The introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, in particular, and Automation, in 0a 0 0
general, will put my current or future position at risk = Strongly disagree
A fair redistribution of jobs will be the most challenging issue of Driverless − 1.577 0.353 19.991 1 0.000 0.207 − 2.268 − 0.886
Transportation = Strongly agree
A fair redistribution of jobs will be the most challenging issue of Driverless − 1.023 0.341 8.999 1 0.003 0.360 − 1.691 − 0.355
Transportation = Somewhat agree
A fair redistribution of jobs will be the most challenging issue of Driverless − 0.934 0.353 7.013 1 0.008 0.393 − 1.624 − 0.243
Transportation = Neither agree nor disagree
A fair redistribution of jobs will be the most challenging issue of Driverless − 0.353 0.371 0.904 1 0.342 0.703 − 1.080 0.375
Transportation = Somewhat disagree
A fair redistribution of jobs will be the most challenging issue of Driverless 0a 0 0
Transportation = Strongly disagree
Authorities should balance job losses by creating new opportunities in other 0.632 0.425 2.208 1 0.137 1.881 − 0.202 1.466
sectors = Strongly agree
Authorities should balance job losses by creating new opportunities in other 0.980 0.424 5.332 1 0.021 2.664 0.148 1.811
sectors = Somewhat agree
Authorities should balance job losses by creating new opportunities in other 0.953 0.435 4.795 1 0.029 2.593 0.100 1.806
sectors = Neither agree nor disagree
Authorities should balance job losses by creating new opportunities in other 0.871 0.464 3.524 1 0.060 2.388 − 0.038 1.780
sectors = Somewhat disagree
a
Authorities should balance job losses by creating new opportunities in other 0 0 0
sectors = Strongly disagree
Field of study/work = Other industries − 0.910 0.153 35.332 1 0.000 0.402 − 1.210 − 0.610
Field of study/work = Transport industry 0a 0 0
Age = 24 or less − 0.604 0.245 6.077 1 0.014 0.547 − 1.084 − 0.124
Age = 25–54 − 0.395 0.221 3.211 1 0.073 0.673 − 0.828 0.037
Age = 55–84 0a 0 0

N = 773, Model chi-square = 243.454; p < 0.05, − 2log likelihood = 1784.274, Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = 0.283.
a
This parameter is set to zero because it is the base category (the reference for comparisons).

8
A. Nikitas et al.
between neutral and somewhat disagree and lastly, 4 between some­
what disagree and strongly disagree.
Four independent variables of the model were assessing people’s
views on whether: i) automation can generate a chain of unsolved
challenges, disrupting the normal flow of the society and industry; ii) the
introduction of AVs, in particular, and automation, in general, will
endanger their current or future jobs; iii) a fair redistribution of jobs
would be the most challenging issue of driverless transportation; iv)
authorities should balance employment losses with newly created op­
portunities in other industries. The other two independent variables had
a socio-demographic nature: v) field of work/study; vi) age. The
perception variables were using five response categories including
strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree and
strongly disagree with the latter being the base category. The two de­
mographic variables referred to the respondents’ background and age
were based on two categories (i.e. transport professionals or not) and
three categories 24 or less, 25–54 and 55 and over respectively.
The context of the first independent variable was referring to the
respondents’ answers on whether ‘automation can generate a chain of
unsolved challenges, disrupting the normal flow of the society and in­
dustry’. We found that agreement to this statement influenced people’s
evaluation about transport sector job losses yielding statistically sig­
nificant results for all agreement categories (p < 0.1). According to the
model, the more positive with the notion that automation can produce
massive challenges respondents were, the more likely they were to
believe that transport professionals’ jobs will be at risk.
The context of the second independent variable was referring to re­
spondents self-reporting their agreement with the notion that ‘the
introduction of AVs, in particular, and automation, in general, will
endanger their current or future jobs’. According to the model the more
people tended to agree that their current or future jobs will be at risk the
more likely they were to believe that transport professionals’ positions
would be threatened. As a whole, even people who do not feel threat­
ened for their individual jobs show some concern that transport pro­
fessionals might be in danger of losing their occupations. All these
results were statistically significant (p < 0.05).
The question matching the third independent variable required from
our respondents to assess whether they believe that a fair redistribution
of jobs would be the most challenging issue of the driverless trans­
portation paradigm. According to the regression model, the more likely
people were to agree that a fair employment redistribution would indeed
be the most challenging problem associated to AVs, the more likely they
were to also agree that AVs would generate negative employment re­
percussions for staff working in the transport industry. These relation­
ships recorded were again statistically significant (p < 0.05) with the
exception of the somewhat disagree category (p = 0.342).
The question matching the fourth independent variable was meant to
assess whether, according to our respondents, authorities should bal­
ance employment losses with newly created opportunities in other in­
dustries. Here, the relationship as indicated by the sign of the estimate
results were opposite from the previous three independent variable re­
sults. Also, there was not straightforward relationship between agree­
ment in the two variables. The respondents that strongly disagreed with
the involvement of authorities in redefining the job market were those
most likely to agree that the transport industry faces serious job losses.
The respondents who ‘somewhat agreed’ that authorities must balance
job losses were the most likely to reject the idea that transport pro­
fessionals’ jobs would be at risk. Specifically, the odds of people
believing that governments should intervene and provide working op­
portunities for the transport sector to disagree with the risk of transport
jobs being cut as result of AVs introduction were 0.980 times higher
from those of people that strongly disagreed to this notion. This means
that although people tend to disagree with the detrimental potential of
AVs when it comes to transport sector’s employment rates, they are still
highly inclined to support the notion that authorities must be involved in
protecting citizens by ensuring new job openings in other sectors. The
9
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
one result that was not statistically significant referred to the strongly
agree category (p = 01.37).
The global spread of the survey resulted in a public divided across
multiple distinct industries. For the purpose of comparison, the different
fields of work/study have been merged in two bigger categories: one
that directly relates to transport and logistics professions and one for all
the other industries. In this case, the transport industry has been
considered the base category. The estimated value reflects that re­
spondents from other industries than transport are 0.910 times more
likely from transport professionals per se to believe that the introduction
of AVs would put transport professionals’ jobs at risk.
To understand if age plays a key role in this study, the model inte­
grated three age groups including 24 or less, 25–54, and 55–84. The
oldest age group is used as a base category for the purpose of our
comparison. Our results imply that the younger the respondents were
the more likely they were to agree that AVs could cause an employment
problem to the transport sector. This trend confirms our previous finding
that older people are perhaps somewhat less likely to see the AV-related
employment threats.
5. Discussion
5.1. Key findings and their implications
Being possibly the main tangible channel of manifesting people’s
right to move freely (Hancock et al., 2019), cars have managed to
redesign human’s subjectivities, living habits and city development
(Bissell et al., 2020). Nevertheless, private car usage may be dangerous,
expensive, and stressful (Bansal et al., 2016), which is why new trans­
port initiatives aim to motivate other alternatives and why according to
Thomopoulos and Nikitas (2019), where travel behaviour cannot be
shifted, there is a need to transform the ‘automobile itself’, embracing
the vast potential of vehicle automation, electromobility and shared use
mechanisms, to make it a better mode. A technological revolution, like
vehicle automation though, despite a wealth of promise also generates
substantial concerns because it will go beyond transforming automo­
bility per se. AVs will possibly have a universal effect that will influence
nearly all economic sectors and will redefine established norms in
employment and employability disrupting the labour market.
This research captures the public perceptions of how AVs will impact
the labour market. Fundamentally, the notion of ‘perception’ is used as
influencing and mirroring public values, with a specific emphasis on
assessing the extent to which AVs are perceived as a potential employ­
ment disruptor. Risk perceptions accompanying particular technological
novelties such as AVs differ significantly across distinct segments of the
public (Binder et al., 2012), which is why they can be extremely chal­
lenging to evaluate. The employment effects of the introduction of self-
driving technology on the transport sector could appear similar with the
employment impacts of the wider technology adoption within different
work fields. In part, this similarity allows the application of logical
reasoning to post-introduction circumstances, making the forthcoming
impact for the working life a topic more conceivable for discussion. It
could be assumed that community beliefs will play a decisive role in
making this a case of revolution or a disaster, since Bansal and Kockel­
man (2018) suggested that the triumph of AVs will be contingent on the
opinions of the public about benefits, concerns, and adoption. According
to Hancock et al. (2019), three layers interact to shape the emerging
transportation technology, including civic communication, human-
machine contact, and technical viability. Thus, because the emerging
system threatens the traditional status quo, the hypothesis that per­
ceptions of AVs might shape their pathway to success is even more
thought-provoking.
Individual assumptions reflecting how respondents perceive AVs, in
general, and the relationship between AVs and employment, in partic­
ular, were investigated. Most of these, at the cumulative level, offer
conclusive indications that people regard transportation as being the
A. Nikitas et al.
main industry at risk after the introduction of AVs. Educational and
professional background, household annual income, (self-perceived)
level of understanding AVs, age and in some cases gender have been
found to significantly influence these perceptions.
Less educated respondents are the most likely to be afraid that
transport professionals’ positions could be at risk after AVs will be
adopted. Respondents with lower incomes also were more concerned
about job losses in the transport sector than the more affluent groups.
Thus, the eventual adoption of AVs may be perceived as a potential
threat primarily to low-income and less educated individuals. This
diagnosis indicates that if the self-driving technology will not be intro­
duced with responsibility and an appropriate re-skilling strategy, it
could be labelled as a concept that strengthens socio-economic
inequality. Snyder (2016) emphasised that affected employees will
naturally want their replaced positions to generate an equivalent in­
come, which is likely to become impossible without early re-skilling
initiatives (Grunwald, 2016).
Most respondents expressed their definite belief that firms under­
taking changes must assume the responsibility to yield new career op­
tions and requalify the affected personnel. Lower-income groups support
this statement more than the affluent groups, suggesting again that
financial status affects people’s perceptions. Respondents approved that
governments should also develop new opportunities in other industries.
We feel that it is unlikely that the full job market will be requalified but
at the same time we cannot yet see the full spectrum of the opportunities
that will open up because of AVs. According to the literature, high-
skilled people will benefit from new opportunities (Nathan & Ahmed,
2018), but it is still unclear how low-skilled people will adapt to the new
environment. It could be hypothesised that the public naturally expects
companies and governments to work together and complement each
other in case of employment disruption. Also, recent experiences from
Cyber Physical System (CPS) production processes show, that as long as
robots are not self-learning, the human will be still be the template for
these machines (Al-Ani, 2017). Thus, at least until AVs maximise their
potential there is space for human labour.
Uninformed respondents displayed more concerns that the intro­
duction of AVs will endanger the jobs of transport professionals. This
suggests, that information can be a powerful tool for decision-makers to
alter people’s perceptions and build trust. The support to most survey
items suggests that more informed respondents tend to have more pro­
nounced viewpoints, showing lower levels of neutrality. This result
supports Messer’s (2010) argument that knowledge is becoming the
currency of modern-day; a viewpoint that is actively revealed by the
more informed and higher educated respondents which exhibit sub­
stantially less concerns when it comes to job losses than the other
groups. Moreover, Antón et al. (2014) claimed that when the personnel
accumulates more personal experience with technology (or in this case
more information and exposure to it), its use turns into a habit, proving
that utility and value tend to be unrelated to initial public acceptance.
The younger generations showed increased inclination to assign
importance to the transport employment-associated risks when
compared with the older groups. Considering that younger people are
less experienced and less likely to have a well-established career, this
result could in fact suggest the increased insecurity that this cohort may
experience in relation to the extremely volatile job market of the 21st
century. Even if the uncertainty of the future has made fears of adverse
employment consequences conventional and inevitable (Halteh et al.,
2018), younger people seem to be the first to recognise that in an AV-
centric era the transport industry’s labour market may be radically
reduced or transformed in unpredictable ways.
Another of our findings shows that, in general, respondents feel that
controlling safety functions will (need to) remain the responsibility of
humans. This is in line with the research of Schoettle and Sivak (2014),
which obtained similar outcomes. People’s perceptions also confirm the
outcomes of other studies according to which impacts of AVs might
differ among different social groups (Center for Global Policy Solutions,
10
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
2017). In this study, respondents show disparities based on distinct
socio-demographic features. Thus, when estimating future social needs
and desires, researchers need to judge problems with reference to both
technological and social co-evolution (Heidingsfelder et al., 2015).
Discussions about how the urban landscape should adapt to this novel
transport paradigm, including not only land-use policy, but also how
both the economy and the society should be revitalised or reconstructed,
are pivotal. Eventually, AV-driven technological, economic, and societal
shifts will impose amendments to their associated legislative frame­
works and vice versa (Salatiello & Felver, 2018).
Governments are not regarded by many respondents as being pre­
pared for the metamorphosis AVs will bring in the workplaces. In gen­
eral, technological revolution has been linked with key types of
employment effects, including changes in employment volume, skillset
requirements of new careers, and labour world changes such as em­
ployees’ satisfaction (Nathan & Ahmed, 2018). As social and techno­
logical progress influence each other in their path towards evolution
(Wu et al., 2019), most of our respondents recognise the general benefits
of automation on productivity in terms of efficiency and time savings.
Prior research about automation and employment impacts advo­
cated that AVs have an immense potential for job creation (Halteh et al.,
2018). People, according to Ransbotham (2017), are more inclined to be
optimistic when discussing about AVs. Given the historical context of
AVs and the intrigue they imprinted in the collective mind of humans, it
is understandable why many people want to see this initiative succeed.
However, this study indicates that this is more precisely the case of
informed individuals. As one would expect, the lack of information and
individual understanding of this topic forces less informed and knowl­
edgeable citizens to be more mindful in their assumptions. Thus, it could
be hypothesised that while knowledge tends to inspire people to look at
the positive side of a transition, the lack of information and under­
standing tend to strengthen uncertainty and fear-related concerns.
Much like Maurer et al. (2016) argued for socio-technological rev­
olutions in general, we explicitly suggest herein that AVs might have the
capacity to change positively the world of employment in certain as­
pects; this could translate to less working hours, more flexibility, higher
salaries, thriving businesses and financial prosperity. However quite
clearly this utopian vision, has an equally realistic dystopian alternative,
that, could lead to large-scale career disruptions, millions of re­
dundancies, cheap labour and augmented control. Hence, the launch of
AVs in the transport professional eco-system can be perceived by some
as the enabler of an employment revolution and by others as a forth­
coming disaster. Transport and logistics, is a sector that could be
completely redefined by AVs and employment would be reshaped one
way or another.
The transport sector professionals appear to be less fearful about the
AV-related employment risks within their sector than all our other re­
spondents. This might be because of their faith in their abilities, their
belief that they have the capacity to adapt and be equipped with the
right skillsets, and a more in-depth knowledge of the transport industry
per se that we hypothesise allows them to recognise that this is an in­
dustry that will never cease to need big numbers of capable employees.
Based on our education, professional background and awareness
findings we suggest that high-skilled people, industry insiders and well-
informed individuals typically perceive social phenomena, referring to
the employment consequences of AVs, differently than low-skilled pro­
fessionals, people ‘looking the transport industry from the outside in’
and individuals with little to no prior knowledge about the topic. This is
in line with what has been suggested by Riechers et al. (2017) for a non-
AV context. In our case the former respondents tend to be more positive
than the latter about the labour market disruption not being
catastrophic.
Also, many of our respondents recognised that even peripheral
businesses like the healthcare and insurance industries will be affected
to some degree by the launch of AVs. The metamorphosis of the trans­
port industry may start a domino effect on other sectors and could also
A. Nikitas et al.
inspire experimentation and adoption of other forms of automation and
computerisation.
5.2. Policy and industry recommendations
Considering that irrespective of their paybacks, various technolog­
ical innovations experience low acceptance rates (Sitorus et al., 2016), it
is critical, prior AVs are finally launched, to devise policy mechanisms
that will support the public to eventually approve of them. Effective
policy development that encourages the implementation of adequate
industry standards and guidelines requires first to understand the public
preferences for AVs (Lu et al., 2017). Consequently, both the govern­
ments and the firms investing in this concept are recommended to
engage not only in research and innovation, but also in education and
training initiatives.
When discussing the advent of AVs, public and private entities must
work jointly, in inter-institutional initiatives, to ensure AVs will
constitute an employment revolution aimed at harvesting human ben­
efits and not a disruption that will adversely affect the lives and well­
being of citizens in general and transport staff in particular. Engaging
people in public consultation exercises that will not only help them to
learn more about AVs, but also to become to some extent ‘co-designers’
can help developing a stronger collective understanding of AVs. Also,
policy-makers, are strongly encouraged to invest in providing timely,
(trans)national regulatory and legislative solutions if they want to be
pro-active and manage successfully the transition to a new automated
mobility paradigm.
This paper recommends that AVs should be developed systematically
and introduced incrementally after serious trialling efforts that include
living lab experiments, because if AVs are incompatible with the re­
quirements and expectations of the public, this may influence their
approval by the public. Developing communication and marketing
campaigns and informing the public about the employment changes to
be experienced is crucial. Information provision and trust-building ex­
ercises linked directly with re-skilling schemes will actually be a
precondition for a smoother transition that will minimise adverse labour
disruption impacts.
As the present study proved, the level of understanding AVs signifi­
cantly influences public perceptions. Thus, a more informed public
would be more prepared to face, accept and overcome changes.
Conversely, if the introduction of AVs will occur while most people are
uninformed and thus unprepared, it is likely that the radical shift will
shock the working world, resembling more a disaster than a positive
transformation. In such a scenario a novel initiative with a wealth of
positive potential like AVs is extremely likely to fail and lead to massive
job losses, the creation of millions non re-employable staff, employment
inequality and possibly new layers of poverty.
Our paper supports other studies recommending that political ac­
tions must be planned and implemented from the preliminary stages of
this transition to avoid employment inequality (Center for Global Policy
Solutions, 2017). As reported, there are dramatic differences of opinions
between the well educated, affluent groups and the less educated, lower-
income groups. The latter groups show increased fears of job losses. As
bringing evolution to a standstill is not an alternative (Ransbotham,
2016a, 2016b), policy-makers must prepare for this revolution and plan
for the new world of employment providing educational, training and
re-skilling opportunities.
Emphasis should be placed on requalifying personnel for arising
professional opportunities that may include among others, roles refer­
ring to software designers and programmers, engineers and statisticians.
Directing people towards alternative positions requiring different skill­
sets than the ones existing currently and training them for those is a
prerequisite for rebounding swiftly from the initial disruption.
Research should also try to predict what jobs will disappear and what
jobs will emerge, to adopt early job evolution perspectives. Funda­
mentally, this study suggests that people tend to feel in a better position
11
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
if they are more IT-literate, better informed and have higher commu­
nication and interpersonal skills. In this case, policy-makers need to
acknowledge that raising educational standards can be pivotal in
avoiding a disaster. As Hancock et al. (2019) noted, for people to be
capable of making reasoned choices about AVs, the society must have
some technical awareness. Thus, authorities must gradually institute
education and training policies, workshops and schemes, consultation
opportunities between experts and wider audiences, and engagement
activities to help the public familiarise with the concept of AVs (Nikitas
et al., 2019). As the public understands more (and eventually interacts
with) AVs, public attitudes towards them are more likely to become
positive as suggested by Penmetsa et al. (2019).
It should also be acknowledged that AVs might have further side-
effects of more indirect nature on employment and labour market
standards. For example, Thakur et al. (2016) modelled travel behaviour
and residential location choices (determined by the accessibility to
employment) for the Melbourne region in Australia in the year 2046 and
assumed a reduction of the value of time for private AVs by 50%
compared to current cars something also in line with Soteropoulos et al.
(2019). This will automatically drastically reduce costs linked to time
losses due to commuting (with people now being able to work while
‘driving’) something that could i) change the way road infrastructure
investments are decided today (cost benefits analysis tools will value
time losses due to congestion differently) affecting those professionals
working on them and ii) make teleworking a more favourable and
mainstream work arrangement.
5.3. Methodological and analytical reflections
As every applied social research study this one also had some limi­
tations that should be acknowledged. Having been self-reported, the
data may be contingent on certain biases that cannot be measured
(Fisher, 1993). Respondents that defined themselves as ‘highly
informed’, ‘well informed’, ‘informed’ or ‘uniformed’ might have been
subjective in their assumptions. People self-assessing their knowledge or
awareness is a procedure that could be prone to biases and specifically to
‘illusory superiority’. Social desirability bias can be another limitation in
surveys that require respondents to self-report their assessments (Nikitas
et al., 2018). For instance, when rating if transport professionals’ posi­
tions will be at risk, respondents might have been inspired to show
sympathy or concern while when assessing the risk associated to their
own positions, they might have been tempted to be more assertive or
vice versa.
Convenience and snowballing sampling could also have an element
of bias (i.e. non-probability sampling may be linked to volunteer bias).
The research was contingent on data collected via online platforms and
while this approach supplies key insights from various members of the
public, there are other groups that may have been under-represented,
people not able to access an online survey (e.g. low-tech and perhaps
older people). The survey did not accumulate high enough numbers of
respondents per geographical location to allow for statistically signifi­
cant comparisons between public attitudes in different countries.
The sample from 50 different countries as a whole was sufficient
however to provide a unique, diverse and internationalised collection of
insights. Perhaps a question requesting from each respondent to provide
direct information about whether his/her professional role was a blue-
or white-collar role could have been interesting; although the level of
education that we have captured in most cases is closely correlated with
this role. We should acknowledge that most of our respondents were
high-skilled staff and future research could focus on a more balanced
sample were low-skilled people are represented more adequately since
some of the problems that would arise may affect them more.
Also, it could be valuable if, in future studies, data would be gathered
testing how informed respondents really are about the notion of an AV
instead of relying on self-assessment which is rarely bias-free. Future
research could also focus on qualitative research looking to develop an
A. Nikitas et al.
in-depth understanding of the factors underpinning the relationships
reported herein.
6. Conclusions
Only a limited number of studies have focused on examining the
potential employment repercussions of a full-scale launch of AVs; there
is little to no understanding of the public perceptions reflecting and
affecting this emerging issue. The present study addresses this research
gap by identifying the main factors defining the relationship between
AVs and employment. More specifically, this paper presents and dis­
cusses the findings of a quantitative survey designed to capture public
perceptions of this critical agenda for the future of urban planning. A
total of 773 viable responses from across the world were collected and
analysed. The themes presented in the study include public awareness,
trust, legal concerns, economic paybacks, employment concerns, and
industry-specific aftershocks.
On average, the respondents argued that the transport industry will
be the first to experience job losses because of AVs and that governments
are not currently equipped for the transition that the introduction of
driverless technology would naturally entail to workplaces. The key
factors found to influence people’s perceptions of employment in the AV
era include age, field of work/study, educational background, annual
household income, understanding levels of AVs and to a smaller extent
gender.
The findings suggest that the potential introduction of AVs is feared
more by low-income, less educated and uninformed people. The younger
generation, although is typically more open to technological changes is
also more prone to associate AVs with adverse employment disruption.
Also, people from other sectors than transport are more inclined to
associate AVs with job losses in the transport industry and beyond;
transport professionals, are less likely to feel that their own posts and
transport professionals’’ jobs in general will be at risk.
The majority of our respondents however were ready to accept that
the entrance of driverless technology on the mobility service provision
would have an enormous impact on transport industry’s job market.
Relevant earlier examples in other industries where automation forced
change possibly helped our respondents to understand both the oppor­
tunities and challenges of an automated transport system when it comes
to employment issues.
An AV-centric technological revolution would lead to an employ­
ment revolution, with both its positive and negative consequences. On
the one hand, a multitude of opportunities for increased productivity,
efficiency, flexible working, higher salaries and cost reductions may
appear while on the other hand, many occupations will disappear
marginalising the role(s) of low-skilled personnel. AVs will create
employment disruption; this is unavoidable. Driving-based and driving-
supporting jobs will become redundant after a potentially long transi­
tion period but the nature and extent of the new job opportunities bound
to arise are genuinely uncertain although they will probably refer to
more high-skilled posts. The transition to AV-based cities employment-
wise will be a complex process of creative, and in some cases ‘painful’,
transformation that will involve consistently not only creation, but also
destruction. Reskilling, public engagement, awareness and training ex­
ercises should be widely adopted by the stakeholders that need to
manage effectively this transition.
Our educated guestimate is that the employees of the future trans­
port arena and beyond will be in a better position (and more employ­
able) if they are more IT-literate, better informed and knowledgeable
about AVs (and AI in general) and develop higher communication and
interpersonal skills that will allow them to work in posts that will be
linked with innovation, critical thinking, creativity and non-repetition.
Standarised and repetitive low-skill transport employment will not
translate well in the era of automated mobility.
This study will be of importance to public authorities in assessing the
unique opportunities and challenges of AVs when focusing on labour
12
Cities 114 (2021) 103203
market aspects. Likewise, it can be instrumental to the evolution of the
AV industry per se and to other driving-related industries like those
providing shared used mobility (e.g. ride-hailing, car-sharing), public
transport and freight logistics. In conclusion, these findings can be uti­
lised as a foundation that critically informs how to smoothen the tran­
sition to an automated transport paradigm for our cities from an
employment perspective, particularly for those working in the mobility
sector.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Alexandros Nikitas: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Analysis,
Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Supervision.
Alexandra-Elena Vittel: Conceptualisation, Data collection, Meth­
odology, Analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Corneliu Cotet: Data Collection, Analysis, Writing - review & editing
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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