Skip to main content

Motorists prefer 'no self-driving capability’, says survey

The latest report by Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak, Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at the University of Michigan, builds on their recent series of eight reports addressing public opinion, human factors, and safety-related issues concerning self-driving vehicles. An identical survey to that used in 2015 was administered. The survey was developed to examine motorists’ preferences among levels of vehicle automation, including preferences for interacting with and overall concern about riding in s
May 24, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The latest report by Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak, Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at the University of Michigan, builds on their recent series of eight reports addressing public opinion, human factors, and safety-related issues concerning self-driving vehicles. An identical survey to that used in 2015 was administered.

The survey was developed to examine motorists’ preferences among levels of vehicle automation, including preferences for interacting with and overall concern about riding in self-driving vehicles. Completed responses were received from 618 licensed drivers in the US.

The main findings include: The most frequent preference for vehicle automation continues to be for no self-driving capability, followed by partially self-driving vehicles, with completely self-driving vehicles being the least preferred choice;  Concern for riding in self-driving vehicles remains higher for completely self-driving vehicles than for partially self-driving vehicles; Respondents still overwhelmingly want to be able to manually control completely self-driving vehicles when desired; Preferences were generally divided between touch-screens or voice commands to input route or destination information for completely self-driving vehicles; Most respondents prefer to be notified of the need to take control of a partially self-driving vehicle with a combination of sound, vibration, and visual warnings.

The authors say that overall public opinion has been remarkably consistent over the two years that this survey has been conducted. The general patterns of responses have not changed over the course of these two surveys, despite the increased media coverage of self-driving vehicles.

Related Content

  • June 29, 2021
    Can AV mapping rely on crowds?
    Mapping tech companies need to expand their data inputs beyond crowdsourcing in order to maintain temporally accurate maps at scale, says Ro Gupta at Carmera
  • January 26, 2012
    Increasing road safety with automated driver assistance systems
    Jon Masters looks at how drivers will be trained to use the increasing number of advanced driver assistance systems being incorporated into modern cars
  • November 12, 2015
    Preventing connected vehicles creating disconnected drivers
    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are evolving at a rapid pace – but drivers’ ability to cope with them is not and at some point the mismatch must be addressed. Probably the biggest challenge the transportation industry has ever faced.” That is how Dr Bryan Reimer of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab describes the challenges posed by semi-autonomous vehicles.
  • May 24, 2017
    Technology, shifts in behaviour can improve urban transportation, says Conduent
    According to Conduent’s Customer Experience of Urban Travel report that details findings from a survey conducted in 23 cities in 15 countries, although improved infrastructure plays a critical role in reshaping mobility in today’s cities, the biggest factor in improving urban travel is changing human behaviour. Researchers found that transportation selection is based on habit rather than rational choice, noting that respondents around the globe chose driving their own car over other modes of transport for r