Virtual Reality Experiment to Study the Role of Social Conformity in the Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles: Taxi Passenger Choice Data, 2022-2023

The Veronica project data includes 2 parts: taxi passenger choice data and pedestrian crossing data. This part primarily involves taxi passenger choice data. The key motivation for the study is to measure the acceptance of fully automated taxis using immersive virtual reality simulations. This approach aims to simulate urban living conditions where fully automated taxis are operating, providing a realistic context in which participants can experience this future travel mode. Unlike previous studies, our experiment is built to ensure that the SC experiment in the VR-based environment is perfectly comparable with the standard SC screen-based, for internal validity. A control group is also used to test the order effect in the presentation of the two surveys, and to control for the carryover effect. The data collection was respectively conducted in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) and Toronto (Canada) between 1 June 2022 and 23 November 2023. For each city, it includes three datasets incorporating 1. results of stated choice experiments through immersive virtual reality and online survey. 2. results of respondents' socioeconomic and travel characteristics; and 3. results of attitudinal questions.

Many governments worldwide are introducing new plans to promote and anticipate the recent rapid development of automation. The economic and societal benefits of autonomous vehicles are foreseen to be enormous (up to Euros 17tn to GDP). But, these benefits could be jeopardised if users fail to adopt the technology. In response to this urgent need, the project aims to take advantage of virtual reality technologies to use them in a scientific context to understand and then model users' acceptance of Fully Autonomous Vehicles (FAVs), particularly Fully Automated Taxis (FATs). In order to achieve the research overall aim, the project set the following specific objectives:- Understand to which extent the acceptance of FATs is affected by how much familiar we can get with this highly technological and innovative product and by what other people around us think about and how they behave with respect to FATs;- Develop a new method for studying acceptance of innovative products, which includes a method to collect the information from customers and a method to analyse this data that can be used then to take policy and industrial decisions that affect every day citizens' life;- Test the benefit of the experiment created to be used across the population to help people to live in and adapt to the forthcoming new technological urban environments. This research will add extensive value to the critical discussions about adoption and diffusion of FAVs or FATs and about the policy incentives that should be given to foster the market. The usability of Virtual Reality environment to social contexts will open opportunities for new applications.