Four out of five people ‘think autonomous vehicles are a good idea’

A new report from Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) and Royal Holloway, University of London, has revealed that four out of five of the people surveyed (81 per cent) are open to the idea of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the UK’s roads. The ‘Attitudes to AVs’ report shows that many people feel that AVs would help deliver a wide range of environmental, social and economic benefits. In addition, the levels of trust in AVs among the people surveyed was also shown to be fairly high, with 55 per cent of responde
August 23, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

A new report from Transport Research Laboratory (491 TRL) and Royal Holloway, University of London, has revealed that four out of five of the people surveyed (81 per cent) are open to the idea of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the UK’s roads.

The ‘Attitudes to AVs’ report shows that many people feel that AVs would help deliver a wide range of environmental, social and economic benefits.

In addition, the levels of trust in AVs among the people surveyed was also shown to be fairly high, with 55 per cent of respondents agreeing that they can trust an AV and 23 per cent saying they ‘somewhat’ agreed they would trust an AV to deliver them to their destination safely.

Chief scientist and research director, Transportation at TRL, Alan Stevens, commented: “While this survey looks at a relatively small and self-selecting sample of people, it is pleasing to see that so many of them were open to using an autonomous vehicle.

“Of course, there were also concerns expressed around certain parameters of an AV’s operation, namely the security of the software and what data the vehicle would store. However, these are issues that we are already beginning to address, with work taking place on various projects and trials.”

The study was run in conjunction with Royal Holloway as part of a larger project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and took the form of an online survey, which received 233 responses.

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

TRL

Related Content

  • Personal Rapid Transit, clear benefits for European cities
    July 26, 2012
    David Crawford watches the race to get the world's first PRT system up and running. To paraphrase the old joke about buses bunching, you seem to have to wait several decades for a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, and then half a dozen come along together. Currently, in fact, there are well over that number of schemes for driverless electric passenger-carrying 'pod' networks at various stages of planning, design and implementation around the world. Locations range from a straight-off-the-drawing board ne
    Read More
  • Vancouver's metro transport promotes alternatives to driving
    January 26, 2012
    David Crawford looks at Vancouver and the legacy of a Olympic transport success
    Read More
  • Europe’s EasyWay project accommodates political requirements
    May 29, 2013
    The EasyWay project has evolved to take account of political developments at the European level. By Jason Barnes The European Union’s (EU’s) EasyWay ITS deployment project has its roots in the ambitions of former European Commission President Jacques Delors with regard to truly international networks for energy, information and for transport. Definition of what became known as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) began back in 1994 with seven working groups. They produced an R&D and policy framework
    Read More
  • ITS World Congress debates perceptions of enforcement
    December 4, 2012
    The technical programme of this year’s ITS World Congress in Vienna includes a special session on the image of enforcement. ITS International examines the scale of the problem and what can be done about it. Debate on the merits and difficulties of enforcing speed limits appears centred on a conflict of principles. Put very simply, local communities, people living close to busy or hazardous roads, want to see traffic speeds calmed. Drivers on those roads, on the whole, want their principle of freedom to be m
    Read More

Highlighted Content