Driverless futures: current non-drivers’ willingness to travel in driverless vehicles

ABSTRACT

This study examines the willingness of a sample of 526 current UK non-drivers to travel in driverless vehicles (DVs). Road traffic is predicted to increase between 10%-40% consequent to current non-drivers taking to the road; the new market including individuals who are unable or unwilling to drive: the aged, people with physical and/or mental impairments, and those who possess phobias about driving. Behavioural Reasoning Theory is employed to explore explicit and implicit attitudes of non-drivers towards DVs. Implicit attitudes towards this ‘really new’ product are measured via an Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). Sample members completed an online questionnaire containing the AMP plus items on reasons for and against DVs, beliefs and values concerning new technologies, and covariates suggested by literature in the transport marketing field.

KEYWORDS:

• Transport marketing
• driverless vehicles
• non-drivers
• behavioural reasoning theory
• affect misattribution
• driving/travelling phobia
• technology acceptance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. At the time of writing, no figures were available on the percentage of UK licence holders who do not drive, although a survey of Scottish licence holders put this figure at 12% (Scottish Government, 2000). The main categories of Scottish non-driving licence holders were individuals under 21 or over 70 years of age; females; single parents; and people with low incomes. Other factors inducing licence holders not to drive were ill health and the ready availability of public transport. A further consideration relating specifically to males might be the idea (encouraged by media advertisements) that driving is exciting, sexy and manly; so that the image of a man without a driving licence is socially unattractive (Woods, 2019). Hence, some men may obtain a licence even though they do not subsequently use it.

2. Blaison et al. (2012) reported that there were 160 AMP studies completed in the six years following the publication of Payne et al.’s (2005) article. The only use of the AMP in empirical marketing research known to the authors is a study by Baron et al. (2017), which demonstrated the application of AMP to the marketing of Pepsi Cola. A review article of Dimofte (2010) observed that whilst the AMP (and other implicit measures) were in their infancy within the marketing domain, implicit measures such as AMP showed significant promise as methodological tools for employment in marketing research.

3. Payne and his colleagues used characters from the Chinese language (e.g. ) in their early investigations, on the assumption that Chinese letters would be meaningless to participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UK Academy of Marketing under [Grant Number AMRC2019-14]. The authors offer their sincere thanks to the Academy for its support.

Notes on contributors

Rita Kottasz

Dr Rita Kottasz is an Associate Professor of Marketing within the Department of Strategy, Marketing and Innovation at Kingston University, London. Rita is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing and Deputy Chair of the Academy of Marketing Special Interest Group on Arts, Heritage, Non-profit and Social Marketing. Her main research interests lie in the areas of arts and non-profit marketing, notably issues to do with fundraising, donor behaviour and cultural consumption.

Roger Bennett

Dr Roger Bennett is a Professor of Marketing at Kingston University. Roger’s current research interests involve the accessibility of really new technologies (driverless cars, pilotless aircraft, smart cities) to people with physical or intellectual impairments. His career has included periods in the mining and metallurgical industries, in management consultancy, and with a leading commercial bank. He is the author of many books and a large number of journal articles on various aspects of marketing and business management. He is a recipient of the Academy of Marketing’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rohini Vijaygopal

Dr Rohini Vijaygopal is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Open University UK, where she gained her PhD (Marketing) from the University’s Business School. Rohini’s research interests are in social marketing, acculturation, branding and consumer behaviour. Rohini has been a faculty member both in India as well as with various universities in the UK and teaches a variety of subjects in marketing and consumer behaviour. She writes for academic as well as business journals and for magazines/book/newspapers.

Bettina Gardasz

Bettina Gardasz is an entrepreneur currently working on various business and research projects. She was a research assistant at Kingston University London in the period in which the present study was completed. Bettina undertook both her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Kingston; receiving a number of academic awards and prizes. Bettina’s research interests cover the fields of innovation technology and foresights, notably science-fiction prototyping as a design tool for the creation of future innovations. At the time of writing Bettina was engaged on the preparation of multiple article publications with colleagues at Kingston University and Lviv Polytechnic National University in the Ukraine.