Skip to main content

Motorists prefer 'no self-driving capability’, says survey

The latest report by Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak, Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at the University of Michigan, builds on their recent series of eight reports addressing public opinion, human factors, and safety-related issues concerning self-driving vehicles. An identical survey to that used in 2015 was administered. The survey was developed to examine motorists’ preferences among levels of vehicle automation, including preferences for interacting with and overall concern about riding in s
May 24, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The latest report by Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak, Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at the University of Michigan, builds on their recent series of eight reports addressing public opinion, human factors, and safety-related issues concerning self-driving vehicles. An identical survey to that used in 2015 was administered.

The survey was developed to examine motorists’ preferences among levels of vehicle automation, including preferences for interacting with and overall concern about riding in self-driving vehicles. Completed responses were received from 618 licensed drivers in the US.

The main findings include: The most frequent preference for vehicle automation continues to be for no self-driving capability, followed by partially self-driving vehicles, with completely self-driving vehicles being the least preferred choice;  Concern for riding in self-driving vehicles remains higher for completely self-driving vehicles than for partially self-driving vehicles; Respondents still overwhelmingly want to be able to manually control completely self-driving vehicles when desired; Preferences were generally divided between touch-screens or voice commands to input route or destination information for completely self-driving vehicles; Most respondents prefer to be notified of the need to take control of a partially self-driving vehicle with a combination of sound, vibration, and visual warnings.

The authors say that overall public opinion has been remarkably consistent over the two years that this survey has been conducted. The general patterns of responses have not changed over the course of these two surveys, despite the increased media coverage of self-driving vehicles.

Related Content

  • Winter maintenance challenge
    February 29, 2012
    Many countries had their most severe winter for years, but it could have been much worse without the right equipment and technology as Patrick Smith reports. As many countries faced up to the 2010-2011 winter, hard-pressed maintenance teams did their best to keep things moving on the roads. With some of the lowest temperatures and heaviest snowfalls on record, the UK, Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, France, Scandinavia, Germany, and Belgium were among those affected. Russia, eastern Europe and the USA did
  • Digital opportunities: Eurasphalt & Eurobitume (E&E) event, Berlin
    July 3, 2018
    Traditional players in the European bitumen sector need to grasp digital technology in all its forms to survive. Kristina Smith reports from the recent E&E conference in Berlin.
  • Road accident database vital for road safety
    February 16, 2012
    In the last of our profiles of laureates of the inaugural Innovation Award for Road Transport in Developing Countries (InARoaD), we meet the winner of the Road Safety category, and third prize overall
  • Road accident database vital for road safety
    April 12, 2012
    In the last of our profiles of laureates of the inaugural Innovation Award for Road Transport in Developing Countries (InARoaD), we meet the winner of the Road Safety category, and third prize overall A vital prerequisite for achieving safer roads is thorough assessment of prevailing traffic situations and identification of associated factors. In this respect, the availability of a comprehensive road accident database is crucial for understanding the pattern of accident causation. Conscious of the ne