Young people’s travel behavior – Using the life-oriented approach to understand the acceptance of autonomous driving
DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2019.07.023
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Summary
This study investigates the acceptance of self-driving public buses (SDPBs) among young people, aiming to understand how life-oriented factors influence travel behavior and technology adoption. The research is motivated by the potential of autonomous driving to create sustainable, eco-friendly mobility solutions that reduce congestion and emissions. However, widespread market success depends on user acceptance. Young people are a critical demographic because their mobility patterns shape future trends, yet existing research has insufficiently addressed how to motivate this group to adopt SDPBs over private car ownership. The authors argue that traditional transportation models often fail to account for the complex interdependencies of life choices, necessitating a broader theoretical framework. To address this gap, the authors developed a comprehensive research model combining the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with the life-oriented approach. This framework integrates standard TAM constructs—perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use—with extensions categorized into life choices (ecological attitude, openness to shared use), subjective well-being (privacy concerns, trust, perceived enjoyment), and travel quality factors (relative advantage, price evaluation). The study was conducted in Germany during a real-world trial of an SDPB. Data were collected via a survey of 268 participants who had already ridden the SDPB. The sample was divided into two age groups: young people (up to age 35) and older people (ages 35 and above), allowing for comparative analysis of how age moderates the relationships between these factors and SDPB acceptance. The results reveal several novel factors influencing SDPB acceptance, with significant differences observed between age groups. The study validates the proposed model, demonstrating that life-oriented variables such as ecological attitude and openness to shared use, alongside subjective well-being factors like trust and privacy concerns, play crucial roles in shaping attitudes and intentions to use SDPBs. Specifically, the findings highlight that age is a vital moderator in the acceptance process, indicating that young people and older individuals are influenced by different determinants. For instance, the impact of ecological attitudes and openness to sharing varies by age, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all approach to promoting autonomous mobility is ineffective. The significance of this research lies in its contribution to both the life-oriented approach and travel behavior studies by explicitly highlighting the importance of age differences. The findings imply that policymakers and service providers must account for these demographic variations when designing strategies to promote sustainable mobility solutions. By understanding the specific drivers of acceptance for young people, stakeholders can better steer this demographic toward using shared, autonomous transport, thereby reducing reliance on private vehicles and fostering a more environmentally sustainable future. The study underscores the need for tailored policy implications that recognize the distinct life choices and values of different age groups.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | pdftotext | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| enrich | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 4 | 2026-06-26 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-26 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: self report data, observational prevalence