Do Sustainability Concerns Play a Key Role in Influencing Individuals’ Acceptance after Experiencing Shared Autonomous Vehicles? A Field Experiment in China

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the factors, such as Sustainability Concerns (SCs) and shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) ride experience that influence individuals’ acceptance of SAVs. In this study, a theoretical acceptance model forms an extended Technical Acceptance Model by incorporating the dimensions of SCs and two different types of sustainability issues (Human Survival [HS] and Human Development [HD]). Through an online questionnaire, 400 questionnaires were collected. Based on this, the validity of the model was evaluated using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis and research analysis was performed. The results showed that HD had a positive and significant impact on SCs, and there was a significant positive correlation between Perceived Usefulness (PU), trust, and SCs and attitude, and attitude was positively correlated with Behavioral Intention (BI). In addition, the riding experience of AVs reinforces the direct influence of attitude on BI.

Keywords:

• Technology Acceptance Model
• sustainability concerns
• acceptance of shared autonomous vehicles
• experience with shared autonomous vehicles

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants for their time and feedbacks.

Disclosure statement

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

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Fengjuan Yan: Investigation, Data Curation, Methodology, Software, Visualization. Zhenwu Shi: Writing-reviewing and editing, Supervision. Jie Liu: Conceptualization, Writing-original draft, Validation.

Data availability statement

The data are not publicly available due to privacy reasons.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (No. YQ2020G001) and Scientific Research Foundation for Heilongjiang Postdoctoral (No. LBH-Q21054).

Notes on contributors

Fengjuan Yan

Fengjuan Yan graduated from Henan University of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in project management and is a graduate student at Northeast Forestry University. Her email address is [email protected].

Zhenwu Shi

Zhenwu Shi is currently a professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Transportation at Northeast Forestry University, where his research interests are urban transportation management, construction engineering economy and project management, and road engineering technology. His email address is [email protected].

Jie Liu

Jie Liu is currently an associate professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Transportation at Northeast Forestry University, with a research focus on urban disaster risk management. Her email address is [email protected].