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

Fahimeh Golbabaei,Tan Yigitcanlar,Jonathan Bunker,Alexander Paz

doi:10.3390/joitmc6040106

Abstract

Fully autonomous vehicles (AV) would potentially be one of the most disruptive technologies of our time. The extent of the prospective benefits of AVs is strongly linked to how widely they will be accepted and adopted. Monitoring and tracking of individuals’ reactions and intentions to use AVs are critical. The current study aims to explore and classify individual predictors (i.e., influential factors or determinants) of public acceptance of, and intention to use AVs, by conducting a systematic literature review and developing a conceptual framework to map out the individual influential factors that shape public attitudes towards AVs, which influence user acceptance and adoption preferences. This framework contains the key factors identified in the systematic review—i.e., demographic, psychological, and mobility behavior characteristics. The findings of the review disclose that public perceptions and adoption intentions vary significantly among different socio-demographic cohorts. Commuters value different aspects concerning AVs, which shape their intentions on acceptance and adoption. Thus, direct experience with AVs along with education and communication would be helpful to change people’s attitudes towards AVs in a positive way. The study informs urban and transport policymakers, managers, and planners, and helps in planning for a healthy AV adoption process with minimal societal disruption.

Highlights

Transportation plays a central role in the society and economy [1,2,3], and at the same time, it is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions [4,5]
The descriptive analysis of the 80 carefully and robustly selected articles regarding their year of publication revealed a rising interest in this domain due to increased availability and technical innovations (Table 2)
In order to complement the systematic literature review findings, this study developed a conceptual framework of individual determinant factors of behavioral intention to use autonomous vehicles (AV) (Figure 2) based on the main technology acceptance theories presented in Section 2 (i.e., technology acceptance model” (TAM), theory of planned behavior” (TPB), and UTAUT) that have good explanatory power for predicting the behavioral intentions and adoption decisions of the potential users

Summary

Introduction

Transportation plays a central role in the society and economy [1,2,3], and at the same time, it is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions [4,5]. There is a great promise that fully autonomous on-road vehicles (AVs) yield a variety of societal and environmental benefits, provided that AVs rely on the clean propulsion system. The prospective benefits would likely include facilitated mobility for transport disadvantaged (e.g., elderly, disabled), enhanced traffic efficiency, improved safety, and lower emissions [6,7,8]. The anticipated benefits of AVs are unlikely to be realized without the broader uptake of AVs, which is linked to public acceptance and adoption intention [9]. In this regard, new business models, such as a sharing economy and a small organization with rapid growth, have appeared

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Conclusion