Autonomous shuttle acceptance in an American suburban context: A revealed preference study in Lake Nona, Florida

Many American cities are testing autonomous shuttles (AS), or self-driving minibuses, as a new mode of public transportation. Existing AS studies often rely on stated preference (SP) surveys that require participants to imagine AS scenarios, or they evaluate short-term pilot programs, thus lacking long-term user insights – particularly in car-dependent suburban contexts. To address these limitations, we conducted a revealed preference (RP) study to identify critical factors influencing AS acceptance among users of Move Nona, the longest-running AS network in the United States, located in Lake Nona, a residential suburb in Orlando, Florida. This study expanded the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to include six latent factors: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, trust in AS safety, perceived AS reliability under inclement weather conditions, personal innovativeness, and environmental awareness. Our findings indicate that perceived usefulness, ease of use, and environmental awareness positively affect AS acceptance. Contrary to previous research, however, trust and personal innovativeness have minimal impact, suggesting that as users become more familiar with AS, they prioritize essential mobility aspects, such as travel speed and convenience, over technological novelty. These insights are valuable for decision-makers planning to adopt AS to enhance local transit services, while also contributing to the broader field of behavior analysis by corroborating an extended application of TAM in examining AS user acceptance.