Trust More, Fear Less: The Role of Social Support in Fully Automated Vehicle Choice

In this article, we reveal how mental support from family, friends, and local authorities—social support (SP)—contributes to inclusivity in the context of fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs). We focus on disaster victims who have trouble driving and test how the information on traumatic experiences relates to their purchase decisions. To this end, we create a unique survey that asks about respondents' purchasing decisions before/after we share information with them on FAV traffic accidents that led to a driver's death. Our results show that SP is crucial for encouraging people to choose FAVs, even after fatal news concerning FAVs is shared, regardless of disaster experience. We also find that other factors, such as safety and convenience, can encourage people to “substitute” choosing FAVs in place of not choosing FAVs. By adopting integrated choice and latent variable models considering individual heterogeneity over 60 000 respondents, our results indicate possible policy paths through which to utilize SP in creating FAVs as an inclusive transportation mode.