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An Experimental Approach to Understanding the Impacts of Monitoring Methods on Use Intentions for Autonomous Vehicle Services: Survey Evidence from Japan

Safety guidelines for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in many regions or countries require AV service providers to have the means to communicate with vehicles and the ability to stop them safely in case of emergencies. The transition to full deployment of AV services is dependent on more advanced monitoring methods. This study uses a survey of approximately 2000 residents of Japanese cities to investigate how monitoring methods affect their intentions to use these services. In particular, the survey is designed to understand how individuals react to unattended operations and remote monitoring in road passenger services including buses and taxis; the survey includes direct questions about intentions to use autonomous buses and taxis and a stated choice experiment based on the respondents’ preferences over their current mode of transportation and autonomous taxis. The results show that monitoring methods have mixed impacts. On one hand, monitoring could affect the general acceptance of AV services. The difference in the overall resistance to using these services is particularly large between the onboard human and remote monitoring options. Individuals tend to express stronger resistance to more advanced remote monitoring. On the other hand, the stated choice results show that the effects of these monitoring factors could be less significant in the actual settings of transportation mode choices; the effects of travel cost and time factors are likely to be more significant. These results suggest that when individuals consider AVs in the context of real-world decisions, their resistance to new technologies is diminished in comparison to their responses to abstract questions.