A statistical analysis of consumer perceptions towards automated vehicles and their intended adoption

Nikhil Menon, Yu Zhang, Abdul Rawoof Pinjari, Fred Mannering

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

While automated vehicle (AV) development continues to progress rapidly, how the public will accept and adopt automated vehicles remains an open question. Using extensive survey data, we apply cluster analysis to better understand consumer perceptions toward potential benefits and concerns related to AVs with regard to factors influencing their AV adoption likelihood. Four market segments are identified–‘benefits-dominated,’ ‘concerns-dominated,’ ‘uncertain,’ and ‘well-informed.’ A random parameters multinomial logit model is then estimated to identify factors influencing the probability of respondents belonging to one of these four market segments. Among other influences (such as socio-economic and current travel characteristics), it is found that ‘Millennials’ have a higher probability of belonging to the well-informed market segment, ‘Gen-Xers’ with a lower probability to the uncertain market segment, and ‘Baby Boomers’ with a higher probability to the concerns-dominated market (relative to the ‘Great Generation’). We also study the individuals’ expressed likelihood of AV adoption using separate random parameters ordered probit estimations for each of the four market segments. The substantial and statistically significant differences across each AV consumer market segment underscore the potentially large impact that different consumer demographics may have on AV adoption and the need for targeted marketing to achieve better market-penetration outcomes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)253-278
Number of pages26
JournalTransportation Planning and Technology
Volume43
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Transportation

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