About

This project takes advantage of virtual reality technologies, used extensively in computer games, to use them in a scientific context to understand and model users’ acceptance of Fully Autonomous Vehicles (FAVs).

It aims to understand the conditions under which citizens will accept to move in an urban environment where traffic will include FAVs and use them as a public transport system (in particular as taxi).

The research is applied both in the UK and Canada, allowing an international comparison and transferability of the results, keeping in consideration differences in the urban structure, life-style and culture.

Objectives

  • Understand to which extent the acceptance of fully automated vehicles is affected by what other people around us think with respect to FAVs and how they behave

  • Develop a new method for studying acceptance of innovative products

  • Test how the experiment might help people to live in and adapt to the new forthcoming technological urban environments

  • Collect an extensive dataset using an experimental paradigm in which we will record participants’ behaviour in crossing a virtual street and choosing between using a traditional or a fully automated taxis

Project Components