Assessing Public Perception and Proposing an Organized Questionnaire for the Deployment and Adoption of Autonomous Vehicles

Since the general public will play a central role in the evolution of AVs, research has been performed to assess their perception and acceptance of AVs. Nevertheless, the most potential users of AVs, i.e., young, students, and more educated people, have not received any particular focus in those studies. This research gap has motivated us to assess their perceptions. Extensive data analyses of the survey at the University of Central Florida with a sample of 315 reveal that on average 57% of the respondents were familiar with AVs, and about 44% of the respondents felt positive perceptions toward AVs. Around 51% of the respondents had some concerns regarding the perceived negative aspects of AVs, however, a significant percentage of people (around 34%) maintained a neutral position regarding the negative aspects of AVs. In addition, structural equation modeling was performed considering five latent variables and 32 observed variables to investigate the inter-relationship among those variables. Model results suggest that as more people have positive primary perceptions about different aspects of AVs, their attitudes toward AVs would be more positive, and the concerns regarding AVs would be reduced. Demographic characteristics do not significantly influence the willingness to possess AVs, and people want to own AVs despite their different demographic backgrounds. These study findings could help policymakers to apprehend different prospects of people\u27s perceptions regarding AVs and have implications for the stakeholders of autonomous vehicles. In addition to that, the study proposed an organized questionnaire based on which the responses of the stakeholders should be collected and analyzed. Findings from literature using heterogeneous questionnaires produced perplexing results for making relevant policies for the adoption and deployment of AVs. The current study addressed this research gap. Particularly this study attempted to identify the organizational pattern of the questionnaire of the previous studies, and eventually proposed a uniform questionnaire based on which future studies might be conducted to obtain varying outcomes from different contexts for the same input. The proposed questionnaire is divided into two portions: a) general content, and b) special content. The general content is applicable to all studies that seek to assess the perceptions of people regarding AVs. This content consists of 4 main categories i.e., perceptions, concerns, expected benefits, and ownership. In addition to general content, special content is also proposed to be added with the general content for some specific cases where the studies will focus on Shared AVs (SAVs) or investigate the perceptions of vulnerable road users or assess the perceptions of the respondents after riding AVs. The current study has the potential to help future studies produce effective policy measures for the quick adoption and deployment of AVs