Aging Population and Automated Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Land Use Patterns and Attitudes

Abstract

This study explores the aging population’s behavior toward the adoption of and willingness to pay (WTP) for autonomous vehicles (AVs), with a focus on the roles of attitudes and land use variables. A structural equation model with interaction effects was developed to explore the impacts of socioeconomic and demographic attributes, mobility profiles, attitudes collected through a user behavior survey, and land use variables extracted from the Smart Location database. Among different structures tested, a direct causal effect from adoption to WTP shows the best model fit, implying that any parameter affecting the adoption will indirectly affect WTP in the same direction. Focusing on the older population, the model results show that they were positively affected by their interest in driving assistance and safety features. Older adults also seemed to be more sensitive to mobility costs compared with younger travelers. We further explored the impact of land use characteristics. In general, it appears that living in areas associated with higher population density and higher centrality index (based on auto accessibility) tends to lower AV adoption rates. Comparing the older population with younger people, no significant difference was observed in view of land use impacts on AV adoption. However, the older population’s WTP tends to increase in urban areas with higher roadway network densities (e.g., urban areas) and is likely to decrease in neighborhoods with higher employment density and higher percentage of single-vehicle households. We suggest that the latter effect might be associated with other micro-level attributes such as their income and lifestyle patterns.