Dream and Reality for Autonomous Vehicles: Results and Lessons from an In Situ Experiment

Abstract

The concept of the autonomous vehicle (AV) is becoming a credible alternative for the coming decades. Interest in AVs has been mirrored by a strong increase in the number of academic papers on the subject. However, few studies have considered a genuinely autonomous vehicle or similar in a realistic environment. They are limited to autonomous shuttles and restricted roads to test attitudes to and acceptance of AVs. This paper reports an exploratory experiment carried out on AV use in real conditions. The objective is to analyze the evolution of AV representation by participants (n = 30) before and after the experiment, between dreams about AVs and reality. The feelings and attitudes induced by AVs and the activities that could be performed in them are considered. The findings show that many of the participants were initially in favor of AVs and were very excited about the idea of the test. Most of them did not feel any stress and the level of trust was high. After the experiment, feelings such as stress and fear increased and the level of trust decreased. Finally, the two main activities declared by the participants before the experiment were similar to the declaration after, being, respectively “watching the road” and “watching through windows.”