Acceptance of Automated Cars and Shared Mobility Services: Towards a Holistic Analysis for Sustainable Mobility Systems

Thu Trang Nguyen (), Florian Ratz and Mario Hirz
Additional contact information
Thu Trang Nguyen: Institute of Automotive Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 11/II, 8010 Graz, Austria
Florian Ratz: Armengaud Innovate GmbH, Paracelsusweg 1, 8144 Tobelbad, Austria
Mario Hirz: Institute of Automotive Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 11/II, 8010 Graz, Austria

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-29

Abstract: Understanding public acceptance is pivotal for integrating automated cars (AC) and shared mobility services (SMS) into mobility systems. This paper presents a holistic framework and demonstrates its application based on a dataset (N = 419; EU-focused sub-sample N = 289) originating from an online survey, capturing metrics like socio-demographics, mobility habits, and perceptions. Acceptance was measured as willingness to use (WTU), and links to willingness to pay (WTP) were examined. A two-stage approach was conducted: non-parametric screening (Chi-square, Spearman’s rank correlation) and proportional-odds ordinal logistic models. Results show that 25.6% would likely use AC and 21.1% would use SMS. WTP for SMS is positively associated with WTU ( p < 0.001), whereas WTP and WTU are not statistically related for AC. Perceived usefulness and ease of use are positively related to WTU for both AC and SMS (all p < 0.01). The acceptance of SMS correlates positively with the acceptance of AC ( p < 0.001), and the preference for combining SMS with public transport (PT) is associated with higher acceptance. The ordinal logistic models confirm these patterns after adjustment, with perceptions/experience and (for SMS) pricing and PT-related variables remaining significant, while several socio-demographic effects attenuate. The cross-country results indicate modest acceptance in Austria and the UK, aligning with recent European evidence.

Keywords: automated cars; shared mobility; willingness to use; willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9610/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9610/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9610-:d:1782147

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().