# Criteria for Route Evaluation of Automated Buses
## 6 Discussion  
The discussion is divided into three parts. First, the expert interview is critically reflected upon. Then, the results of the case study are discussed. Finally, the entire work is discussed, and potential real-world applications are highlighted. The expert interviews provided the necessary criteria for evaluating routes for the deployment of automated buses. During this process, new criteria were identified, and some criteria from the literature were excluded compared to the findings of the literature review. Overall, the authors consider the expert interview to be a suitable method for identifying criteria, with results of high quality. This conclusion is supported by the extensive experience of the experts, who had collectively contributed to numerous automated bus operations in public settings. While additional experts could potentially have identified further criteria, the authors are confident that a broad range of perspectives was considered and that the identified criteria are comprehensive and of high quality. The results presented in Section 4 reveal that more than 50% of the criteria (28 out of 53) were \"must-have\" criteria, mentioned by at least 75% of the experts. Furthermore, 13 additional criteria were mentioned by at least 50% of the experts, while only 12 criteria were cited by a minority. One limitation of the process was that experts interviewed earlier were not revisited at the conclusion of the study. Allowing all experts to review the complete set of criteria after all interviews were conducted could have enhanced the process. Regardless of this, the list of criteria must be seen as a modifiable list. The technology of automated buses will continue to develop, and therefore some criteria will probably no longer be considered in the future. On the other hand, it is also possible that new criteria can be added to the list. For example, [PERSON] et al. believe that the infrastructure for electric buses must be taken into account when selecting routes [48]. However, this was not mentioned by any expert in the survey because it is probably covered by the criterion of bus stops. If new criteria are added to the catalog, the influence of these criteria must be determined so that the weighting for all criteria can then be adjusted. The expert survey also provided an initial assessment of the weighting of the criteria, a contribution that was previously not available in the literature and represents a valuable starting point and an innovation. Nevertheless, during the survey, experts were required to independently assess the influence of each criterion. To improve both the results and methodology, experts could be presented with a summary of all criteria and their weightings at the end of the survey for validation. Paired comparisons could further refine the rankings. However, given the large number of criteria (over 50), it is unlikely that the overall percentage weightings would change significantly. In summary, a joint meeting with all experts to discuss the criteria and their weightings would be a valuable addition to the process. However, this was not feasible within the scope of the present study. The results of the case study show that not all data can be collected on the basis of public data. However, public data provide an opportunity to evaluate the routes for the use of automated buses at an early stage of the planning phase. This makes the benefit of the case study obvious, which should examine the extent to which the criteria can really be used for a general route evaluation of an area of use in the context of public transportation planning. The criteria that, according to the results of Section 5, cannot be collected on the basis of public data, must first be collected retrospectively, if necessary, when the selection is limited to a few routes for the automated bus. Furthermore, the case study shows that weather criteria should be considered before the route selection process, as these evaluate the feasibility of the deployment area.