Assessing Public Opinions of and Interest in New Vehicle Technologies: An Austin Perspective
Technological advances are bringing connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) to the ever- evolving transportation system. Anticipating the public acceptance and adoption of these technologies is important. A recent internet-based survey was conducted polling 347 Austinites to understand their opinions on smart-car technologies and strategies. Ordered-probit and other model results indicate that respondents perceive fewer crashes to be the primary benefit of autonomous vehicles (AVs), with equipment failure being their top concern. Their average willingness to pay (WTP) for adding full (Level 4) automation ($7,253) appears to be much higher than that for adding partial (Level 3) automation ($3,300) to their current vehicles. This study estimates the impact of demographics, built-environment variables, and travel characteristics on Austinites’ WTP for adding such automations and connectivity to their current and coming vehicles. It also estimates adoption rates of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) under different pricing scenarios ($1, $2, and $3 per mile), choice dependence on friends’ and neighbors’ adoption rates, and home-location decisions after AVs and SAVs become a common mode of transport. Higher-income, technology-savvy males, living in urban areas, and those who have experienced more crashes have a greater interest in and higher WTP for the new technologies, with less dependence on others’ adoption rates. Such behavioral models are useful to simulate long-term adoption of CAV technologies under different vehicle pricing and demographic scenarios. These results can be used to develop smarter transportation systems for more efficient and sustainable travel.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE20 Standing Committee on Transportation Economics.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Bansal, Prateek
- Kockelman, Kara M
- Singh, Amit
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
- Date: 2016
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: References; Tables;
- Pagination: 21p
- Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Built environment; Costs; Demographics; Intelligent vehicles; Mobile communication systems; Pricing; Probits; Public opinion; Sustainable transportation
- Candidate Terms: Shared-use vehicle systems
- Uncontrolled Terms: Willingness to pay
- Geographic Terms: Austin (Texas)
- Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I90: Vehicles;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01588974
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 16-1470
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Jan 30 2016 6:06PM