Factors affecting the acceptance and willingness-to-pay of end-users: A survey analysis on automated vehicles

The emergence of automated vehicles (AVs) is expected to have a huge impact on traffic safety and environmental improvement. In order to promote the sustainable development of AVs, it is urgent to study the public’s acceptance of and willingness-to-pay for automated vehicles and their influencing factors. Based on a questionnaire survey and descriptive research, this paper investigates the public’s general views on AVs. A psychological model considering technical trust (TT), perceived benefit (PB), perceived risk (PR), and perceived ease of use (PU) was constructed to study the factors that influence the public’s acceptance of and willingness-to-pay for AVs. Logistic regression models based on demographic factors such as monthly income (MI) and driving experience (DE) and psychological factors were established to predict end-users’ acceptance and willingness-to-pay. The accuracy of the two models is 93.2% and 87.9%, respectively. Based on the results, the following policies can be put forward to promote the development of AVs: (1) more information to enhance TT; (2) pricing and easy maintenance based on PU; (3) education and training based on TT and PB; and (4) personalized sales based on DE and MI.