Acceptance of Autonomous Electric Vehicles as a Collective Passenger Transport: The Case of Portugal.

Even with some exemplars of autonomous shuttles that perform simple paths already being available to be used by the general population, with the rising popularity of autonomous vehicles, it is important to understand whether the population is willing to use such transport in multi-lane highways. Thus, this study investigates the acceptance of autonomous collective vehicles as a viable choice for public transportation. For this, the Autonomous Vehicle Acceptance Model (AVAM) was translated into Portuguese, adapted, and launched as an online questionnaire. Since autonomous vehicles are rare in Portugal, we hypothesised that people would be reticent to this type of technology as a type of public transportation. One hundred fifty-seven valid answers from the Portuguese population were collected and analysed. The results were very similar in all demographic and social contexts. Two main factors resulted from data analysis: Behavioural Intention and Cost-benefit. Behavioural Intention is responsible for 42.4% of the variance and consists of Performance Expectancy, Social Influence, Facilitating Conditions, Attitude, Self-Efficacy, and Behavioural Intention. Cost-Benefit is responsible for 16.9% of the variance and comprises Effort Expectancy, Anxiety and Perceived Safety. From people who usually use public transportation to people who are accustomed to driving, most respondents favour adopting such vehicles in today’s public transportation. However, they know that the necessary infrastructures do not exist.