Influencing the Acceptance and Intention to Use Fully Automated shuttle Buses through Communication

Abstract

As one of the major greenhouse gas emitters within Germany, the transport sector faces the challenge to become more environmentally friendly. Not an easy task in a country where more and more private cars enter the streets. Innovative and more sustainable travel modes, like fully automated shuttle buses, could be a possible solution to generate a cleaner transport sector and therefore contribute to a more sustainable mobility future. However, such innovations need to be accepted by the citizens to successfully getting integrated. Effective communication has the potential to influence people’s perception and thus could be key to influence people acceptance of and intention to use innovative and more sustainable modes of travel. This study investigated how communication could influence the acceptance and intention to use fully automated shuttle buses. A mixed method approach, including qualitative interviews and an online survey, was chosen to find out how communication experts communicate sustainable and innovative products and services in practice and how informative and emotionalizing communication might affect people’s acceptance of and intention to use fully automated shuttle buses. The analysis of the interviews indicated that communication experts communicate sustainable and innovative products or services following different steps of a communication strategy. Besides, it was mentioned that emotional communication is highly valued. The analysis of the online survey revealed that advertising in form of posters does not seem to have any significant effect on people’s acceptance of or intention to use fully automated shuttle buses, neither when using emotional advertising appeals nor when choosing informative ones. Follow up studies need to be conducted to support or reject these findings and generate more insights into the hitherto little-researched field that links communication with the acceptance and intention to use innovative modes of travel.