The role of automobility engagement in consumer response to fully automated vehicles

This project’s objective is to help improve knowledge regarding consumer perspectives of conventional car mobility and transport innovations in Canada, with particular focus on fully automated vehicles (FAVs), or vehicles that can drive themselves without requiring a driver to be paying attention. Innovations can alter the transport sector’s environmental sustainability – for example, electric vehicles are key in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, while FAV impacts are uncertain. The Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START) and Navius Research Incorporated are leaders in analyzing impacts from such innovations in Canada. The prevalence of car use as the main transport mode, also referred to as “automobility”, has led to several societal problems and may lower innovations’ sustainability benefits. This project aims to investigate consumer perspectives of FAVs and their expected impacts on how consumers engage with mobility by private cars by conducting semi-structured interviews with households in British Columbia.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jonn Axsen

Student:

Viviane Hippmann Gauer

Partner:

Navius Research Inc

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Simon Fraser University