Examining the effect of moderating variables on autonomous public van acceptance model (APVAM)

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will soon become the primary means of transportation for millions of people. However, the introduction of these vehicles may lead to increased traffic and changes in people’s travel patterns. To address this issue, one solution is to promote the use of AVs in a shared and public manner. However, the success of this approach depends on public acceptance of public AVs. If the promoters of public AVs are unaware of how people perceive this technology, it is possible that these vehicles will face failure in the market. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the factors that influence the willingness to use public AVs. To achieve this, an autonomous public van acceptance model (APVAM) was developed by adapting the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) through structural equations modeling. In this study, 824 citizens of Tehran participated in a field study and completed an online questionnaire. The research results indicated that the variable of effort expectancy indirectly affects the use of autonomous public vans (APVs), while the variables of performance expectancy, facilitating condition, hedonic motivation, and perceived PUnTrust directly affect their use. The research also found that various factors such as gender, level of education, individualism/collectivism, travel purpose, the dominant travel mode, marital status, occupation, age, household wealth, number of vehicles owned, and the price of the current vehicle of the household have a moderating effect on the APVAM. Furthermore, it was revealed that individuals who primarily use personal or public transport for their daily trips are more influenced by the perceived enjoyment of APVs in increasing their willingness to use these vehicles, compared to those whose predominant mode of travel is walking or cycling.