User Perspectives on Autonomous Driving: A Use-Case-Driven Study in Germany

Abstract

Whether it will be an evolutionary development in a stepwise manner, or an Initial deployment in a small area, spreading from there to a wider space: autonomous driving has the potential to change transport and mobility in the future. To address aspects in this regard, various dimensions have to be considered – an important one of them being the user perspective. With the study at hand we explored this perspective by asking 1,000 users of the transport system in Germany in April 2014 about their attitudes and mindsets towards autonomous driving. It doing so, we introduced four different use cases on autonomous driving to the respondents to examine possible variances in perception and evaluation: Highway Pilot; Parking Pilot; Fully Automated Vehicle, which still allows a driver to take over whenever requested; and Vehicle on Demand, in the literature or the media often also referred to as “robotaxi” or “driverless car”.