Cybersecurity, reliability, and shared cars are the top public concerns regarding Autonomous Vehicles in Austria.
Vienna University of Economics and Business researchers conducted a large-scale online survey.
Austria
Are We Ready to Ride Autonomous Vehicles? A Pilot Study on Austrian Consumers’ Perspective
Summary Information
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are likely to see significant adoption and uptake in the medium-term future. However, exactly when this adoption happens depends both on the technical implementation and development of AVs, but also on consumer willingness to use and/or buy AVs.
In order to better understand consumer willingness to buy AVs and consumer concerns Vienna University of Economics and Business researchers conducted a large-scale online survey in Austria. The survey asked respondents a variety of questions about their attitudes towards AVs such as "What are your concerns about replacing conventional cars with self-driving cars?" and "How safe would you feel in an AV versus a conventional car?". All responses were collected via a 5-point Likert scale.
Overall, the survey returned 192 responses.
Initial analysis of the data suggested that it was non-normally distributed, therefore researchers used non-parametric tests; instead they used Spearman's rank correlation and Mann-Whitney U tests for hypothesis testing.
Researchers found that overall respondents had significant concerns about AV technology. Specifically, legal concerns (mean = 4.08) were the top concern. Cybersecurity concerns (mean = 3.82) and unspecified "safety" concerns (mean = 3.84) also ranked high. Cost concerns (mean = 3.68) were the lowest concern. Additionally, users were significantly less likely to say they would feel safe in an AV (mean = 2.64) compared to being in a conventional car (mean = 3.81).
Beyond safety, security, cost etc. concerns researchers also asked users how comfortable they would be sharing their hypothetical AV in a 'shared autonomous vehicle' scheme. Nearly half of respondents (n = 86) stated they would never share their car. In terms of those who responded indicated that they would share their car, one quarter would be motivated by theoretical rental income, and a fifth of respondents would be potentially motivated by tax breaks.
