Understanding Shared Autonomous Vehicle Preferences: A Comparison between Shuttles, Buses, Ridesharing and Taxis

Shared autonomous vehicles (AVs) will soon be introduced in public transportation as cities and their transportation systems become ‘smarter’. This brings long-term environmental, economic and societal benefits to cities. However, shared AVs will not only need to overcome technological challenges but also prevail against social barriers for successful marketplace penetration. Hence, we proposed and investigated the acceptance of four shared AV service designs for public use in this study, namely, autonomous buses, shuttles, AV rideshares and autonomous or robo-taxis. An online survey conducted in Singapore with 734 adults found the greatest receptiveness toward the introduction of autonomous shuttles, in part due to perceptions that they will perform well and be easy to adopt. This aligns with ongoing shared AV trials where AV shuttles are mostly used. Larger autonomous buses had the second-highest acceptance. AV rideshares and taxis seem to largely appeal to the existing regular users of the conventional counterparts of these services. These results suggest that to encourage a mode switch from public transport to ridesharing and taxis, or vice versa, shared AVs need to appeal to users beyond being an automated version of existing modes. That is, shared AVs need to address an underserved or unmet transportation need or population.