Predicting Autonomous Shuttle Acceptance in Older Drivers Based on Technology Readiness/Use/Barriers, Life Space, Driving Habits, and Cognition

Automated shuttles (AS) may improve older adults’ (>65 years old) mobility, and participation in the community, but must be user-friendly and safe. Barriers to acceptance of AS include a lack of trust and hesitation to adopt emerging technology. Technology readiness, perceived ease of use, perceived barriers, and intention to use the technology, are important to inform researchers on older adults’ acceptance and adoption practices of AS. Likewise, age, life-space mobility, driving habits, and cognition predict driving safety among older drivers—but we are uncertain if they also predict older adults’ intention to use the AS. We examined responses from 104 older drivers (Mage = 74.3, SDage = 5.9) who completed the Automated Vehicle User Perception Survey (AVUPS) before and after riding in an AS (EasyMile EZ10). Participants also completed the Technology Readiness Index, Technology Acceptance Measure, Life Space Questionnaire, Driving Habits Questionnaire, Trail-making Test Part A and Part B (TMT A and TMT B). Older drivers’ age, cognitive scores (i.e., TMT B), driving habits (i.e., crashes and/or citations, exposure and difficulty of driving), and life-space were entered into four models to predict their acceptance of AVs—operationalized according to the subscales (i.e., intention to use, perceived barriers, and well-being) and the total acceptance score of the AVUPS. Next, a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) elucidated the relationships between, technology readiness, perceived ease of use, barriers to AV acceptance, life space, crashes and/or citations, driving exposure, driving difficulty, cognition, and intention to use AS. The regression models indicated that neither age nor cognition (TMT B) significantly predicted older drivers’ perceptions of AS; but their self-reported driving difficulty (p = .019) predicted their intention to use: R2 = 6.18%, F (2,101) = 4.554, p = .040. Findings from the PLS-SEM, (R2 = .467) indicated the only statistically significant predictors of intention to use were technology readiness (β= .247, CI= .087-.411) and barriers to AV acceptance (β= -.504, CI= .285- .692). These novel findings provide evidence suggesting that technology readiness and barriers must be better understood if older drivers are to accept and adopt AS.