Abstract
This study examines differences in public interest toward automated vehicle (AV) adoption between burdened communities (BCs) and non-burdened communities (non-BCs). The study uniquely captures travel behavior by integrating the census tract-level community indicators with the 2017–2019 Puget Sound Household Travel Survey. Public interest in AV ownership is modeled as a five-level ordered outcome, ranging from ‘Not interested at all’ to ‘Very interested.’ Segmented ordered logit models and Random Forest are used to identify key drivers and barriers to AV adoption across BCs and non-BCs. Results show that longer commute times, lack of personal vehicles, and concerns about AV performance in adverse weather conditions are significantly associated with higher interest levels toward owning AVs in BCs. The findings offer insights for developing targeted policies to promote AV adoption and address differences between BCs and non-BCs in accessing emerging transportation technologies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Transportation Planning and Technology |
| DOIs | |
| State | Accepted/In press - 2025 |
Funding
The authors thank the Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities, CR2C2, a USDOT-funded University Transportation Center, for providing financial support for this paper’s research, authorship, and/or presentation/publication. The use of ChatGPT to improve the readability of the manuscript is acknowledged. However, the authors reviewed the content of the manuscript and take full responsibility for its content.
Keywords
- Automated vehicles
- burdened communities
- household travel survey
- non-burdened communities
- public interest