Public acceptance of electric roadways: The case of Los Angeles, California

Abstract

Dynamic charging has the potential to overcome the barriers to electric vehicle (EV) adoption by converting road segments into powered lanes (electric roadways or ERs). This paper focuses on examining public acceptance by determining the factors that affect the short-term and long-term intention to purchase an EV and drive on ERs; identifying the clusters of the technology acceptance; and assessing the value of travel time savings (VTTS) for driving on ERs, in general, and for different clusters. A survey was conducted in Los Angeles, California and distributed online, gathering 600 responses. The results showed that respondents’ innovativeness, lifestyle and environmental consciousness significantly affect the intention to drive on ERs in the short- and long-run. Public acceptance, in general, seems to be related to charging patterns, safety of commute route, and safety concerns for ERs, among other factors, and depends on the implementation time of the technology. Higher VTTS were found for electrified lanes exclusive for EVs on interstate and arterial roads. People who were classified as positive toward ERs had higher VTTS for ERs followed by those who were neutral and those who were concerned about ERs. This paper can help policymakers and transport operators devise strategies to accelerate EV adoption by appropriately implementing the ER technology.

Keywords:

• Electric vehicles
• electric roadways
• public acceptance
• intention to use
• value of travel time savings

Notes

1 More specifically, the index was calculated as follows:$A_j=\frac{{\sum }_{i=1}^n{a}_i}{n} ,$ where $A_j$ represents the attitude of each observation toward the variable or group of opinions j;${ a}_i$ represents the rating on question i of the group of questions j; n represents the number of questions included in each group j.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon the work supported by the US Department of Energy, ARPA-E program under Grant No. DE-AR0000885. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein, and do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the sponsoring organizations. These contents do not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.