Between education and employment: How apprentices navigate commuting mobility challenges across spatial contexts in Austria

Engineering notes

Key topics: autonomous driving. See the paper for implementation details and experimental results.

Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充：本站会优先为端到端自动驾驶、BEV感知、3D目标检测、轨迹预测、路径规划、LiDAR感知等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

This study examines how Austria’s dual education system generates unique commuting demands. Apprentices must regularly navigate educational travel to vocational schools as well as employment-like commuting to often spatial dispersed training companies, while facing youth-related restrictions in autonomous mobility and financial resources. However, the mobility implications of this institutional arrangement remain largely overlooked in both transport research and policy. To explore how apprentices perceive and manage these mobility demands, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with apprentices aged 16–23 in the Vienna metropolitan area and Upper Austria, consisting of urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Interview data were analysed via qualitative content analysis. Findings reveal that apprentices face heightened transport poverty risks due to spatial inaccessibility, temporal demands, and limited resources, particularly in rural, peri-urban and town areas where insufficient public transport increases dependence on private motorised transport or social support networks. Spatial disparities in training locations and early work hours intensify negative consequences of time poverty, stress and exclusion risks. While some mitigate these challenges through household support or flexible modal choices, access to coping resources is uneven. Despite these objective constraints, many apprentices do not perceive themselves as disadvantaged due to the normalization of car dependency and long commutes; burdens intensify primarily when multiple constraints overlap. The study highlights apprentices as a group facing structural mobility vulnerabilities that remain underrepresented in policy discourse. It calls for spatially tailored mobility interventions and stronger coordination between transport, education, and youth policy sectors to ensure equitable access to vocational education.

Links and sources

• PDF from original source

Comments