ARE WE READY TO EMBRACE CONNECTED AND SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES? A CASE STUDY OF TEXANS

While connected, highly automated, and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) will eventually hit the roads, their success and market penetration rates depend largely on public opinions regarding benefits, concerns, and adoption of these technologies. Additionally, these technologies bring many future uncertainties in carsharing market and land use patterns, and also raise the need for tolling policies to appease travel demand induced by their convenience. To these ends, this study surveyed 1,088 respondents across Texas to understand their opinion about smart vehicle technologies and related decisions. The key summary statistics indicate that Texans are willing to pay (WTP) $2,910, $4,607, $7,589, and $127 for Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 automation and connectivity, respectively, on average. Moreover, affordability and equipment failure are Texans’ top two concerns regarding AVs. Interval regression and ordered probit models were estimated to understand multivariate correlations between demographics, built environment, travel patterns, crash history, and responses including WTP for CAV technologies, adoption rates of shared autonomous vehicles at different pricing points, home-location shifts, adoption timing, and opinions about tolling policies. Relationships suggest that more experienced licensed drivers have higher WTP for connectivity, while older people associate lower values with all automation technologies. These insights can inform long-term adoption forecasts and help planners craft strategies for regions with high or low future adoption of CAV technologies.

Prateek Bansal, Kara M. Kockelman