Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles using a Combination of UTAUT and DOI

The advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) revolutionized the future transportation system. Along with the potential benefits of this technology, new and unknown challenges in the field of transportation are emerging. One of the first steps in examining the impact of these devices is to identify latent variables that affect their acceptance. Most researchers have used the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine the latent variables influencing the acceptance of AVs, which is a combination of the previous eight theories of acceptance models but ignores some variables affecting acceptance. In this paper, a combination of UTAUT and diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory, and the latent variables of performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) (in UTAUT), and observability (OB), and trialability (TR) (in DOI) were examined. The results of the calibrated proposed model (for 338 samples obtained from the design and distributed questionnaire for this purpose in 2019 among the residents of Tehran) indicated that the PE and OB had the highest and least impact on the acceptance of AVs, respectively. The results of this study can be used by policymakers to address the barriers and challenges facing individuals to adopt this technology and thus benefit from its potential benefits.