Public priorities and consumer preferences for selected attributes of automated vehicles

Abstract

Public opinion and consumer preferences are among the various constraints on the rollout of automated cars, as they will affect the decision-making of both automotive industry actors and public-sector regulators. This study contributes to the growing body of the literature regarding this issue, through a moderate-scale survey (n = 370) that incorporated both prioritization/attitudinal questions (regarding public opinion) and a stated-preference module (to identify consumer preferences). The survey protocol includes a stated-preference approach to investigate consumers' preferences for the possibility of very high rates of speed in automated cars on long-distance journeys. We found separately identifiable effects for average travel speeds (manifested as journey duration) and maximum travel speed in the stated-preference scenarios. In the 'prioritization' component of the survey, respondents ranked having the 'highest possible level of safety' as the single most important benefit that they would like automated cars to deliver, ahead of benefits such as being able to performing activities while traveling or having traffic congestion reduced. This result has consequences for the car-following distances that are programmed into the control algorithms of automated cars. Documenting this finding is important, as decisions must be made in the near future by driving-algorithm designers, public-sector regulators, and ultimately the judiciary regarding the guidelines for acceptable automated driving-behavior instructions.

Public discomfort at the prospect of autonomous vehicles: Building on previous surveys to measure attitudes in 11 countries

“…We focus in this paper on two potential correlates of attitudes towards AVs that reflect our interest in the process of anchoring and objectifying, namely attitudes to new technology generally, and attitudes to the prospect of mixing AVs with human driven vehicles (HDVs). Academic surveys have considered many other correlates, including personality traits (Kyriakidis, Happee, & de Winter, 2015), travel habits (Haboucha, Ishaq, & Shiftan, 2017;Kockelman, Boyles, Stone, Fagnanat, Patel, Levin, & Li, 2017), diverse related attitudes (Lustgarten & Le Vine, 2018) as well as typical sociodemographic variables (Becker & Axhausen, 2017;.…”

Individual Predictors of Autonomous Vehicle Public Acceptance and Intention to Use: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Perceived benefits of AVs: Some relative advantages of AVs are expected to be independent mobility for non-drivers (i.e., transport disadvantaged groups, disabled people, elderly people), increased productivity while travelling caused by multitasking, shorter travel time, less parking problems due to using on-demand services, lower insurance premiums, improved safety, greater environmental friendliness, relief from the stress of driving tasks, reduced vehicle ownership, enhanced fuel economy, the ability to drive after the use of alcohol or medication, congestion reduction, and the capability to send untenanted AVs to perform errands [8,19,40,69,84,93,98,104,112,118,141,[152][153][154][155][156][157].…”

A multi-level model on automated vehicle acceptance (MAVA): a review-based study

“…Bansal and Kockelman 2018;Bloom et al 2017;Brinkley et al 2017; Fraedrich & Lenz 2016; Gilbert & Daily 2018; Greaves et al 2018;Jardim et al 2013;Lavieri et al 2017;Lilijamo et al 2018; Medina and Jenkins 2017; Menon 2015; Pakusch & Bossauer 2017; Pettigrew et al 2018, 2019; Portouli et al 2017; Regan et al 2017; Sanaullah et al 2016; Sauders & Charness 2016; Shabanpour et al 2017, 2018; Shin & Shunsuke 2017; Ulahannan et al 2018; Wang and Ankar 2019; Woisetschläger 2016; Woldemanuel and Nguyen 2018). Benefits encompass improvements in productivity due to the engagement in non-driving related tasks, benefits for the environment (e.g., reduction of fuel consumption, emissions and traffic congestion, lower vehicle ownership), increased mobility independence and freedom for the physically-impaired and elderly, no need to spend resources on learning how to drive, lower insurance rates, lower repair costs (in case of less accidents), and easier and quicker and less expensive parking(Adnan et al 2018;Bazilinskyy et al 2015;Bennett et al 2019;Dai & Howard 2013;Daziano et al 2017;Hulse et al 2018;Kelkel 2015;Lustgarten & Le Vine 2018;Medina and Jenkins 2017;Portouli et al 2017;Sauders & Charness 2016;Shin & Shunsuke 2017;Tennant et al 2016;Yap et al 2016).…”