Examining the Acceptance for Autonomous Transit Feeders Using a Hybrid Choice Model

Acceptance is often claimed to be the crucial factor for autonomous vehicle success. In this study, we examine the factors that influence the acceptance of autonomous transit feeders using a hybrid choice model. Our research is based on data from a Germany-wide online survey with more than 1,000 respondents. The influence of gender, travel behavior, individual availability of mobility tools, such as car ownership or transit pass, and previous knowledge coincides with findings from previous studies. Further, we are able to explain a large part of the unexplained heterogeneity compared to a “base” ordered probit model with the latent variables “simplification” through autonomous minibuses and “pro-transit-attitude”. This indicates the relevance of considering attitudes in future research on the acceptance of autonomous vehicles in order to arrive at correct interpretation and to reduce the heterogeneity in predicting models.