Does Sidewalk Separation Type Matter? How Sidewalk Design Shapes Pedestrian Acceptance of Public Mobile Robots

초록

Public Mobile Robots (PMRs) are increasingly operating on urban sidewalks, yet the physical design of these shared spaces has received little empirical attention as a determinant of pedestrian acceptance. This work-in-progress paper presents findings from a within-subjects experiment (N = 500) examining how three sidewalk separation types, Shared Space, Semi-separated Space, and Fully-separated Space, affect pedestrian subjective perceptions and coexistence acceptance. The three separation types represent conceptual conditions spanning a spectrum currently under policy and infrastructure discussion across multiple countries, rather than physical designs we implemented or evaluated in situ. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that Shared Space consistently produced the least favorable evaluations across all seven measured constructs. Semi-separated and Fully-separated Space conditions yielded comparable outcomes for Perceived Usefulness, Sidewalk Design Acceptance, and Coexistence Intention, suggesting that the presence of any spatial demarcation, rather than its degree, may represent the more consequential factor in early acceptance formation. We discuss what these findings suggest for the design of PMR coexistence environments and identify open questions for future research, including how different forms of spatial demarcation may be experienced across diverse pedestrian populations and real-world deployment contexts.

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