Public autonomous vehicles (AVs) have a high potential to solve traffic related problems and environmental challenges. However, without the passengers’ acceptance, the potential to achieve these benefits will not be fulfilled. Therefore, this paper is focused on the factors that influence the acceptance of such vehicles and investigates how much the acceptance varies if different levels of supervision are provided. An online survey was conducted and factors like trust and experience were found to impact on the stated intention to use a self-driving bus. Additionally, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) factors, such as, effort expectancy, performance expectancy and social influence were found to impact user intentions. Interestingly, socio-demographic factors appeared to be determinants of the acceptance of public AVs only if an employee was no longer present in the bus.

The study highlighted the importance of paying sufficient attention to qualitative psychological factors, next to classic instrumental attributes like travel time and costs, before and during the implementation of public AVs. As experience was found to be a relatively robust factor in explaining public AV acceptance, we expect that preferences towards autonomous public transportation evolve along with the transition from hypothetical scenarios to demonstration pilots, to their deployment in regular operations. We therefore recommend the extension of this research to revealed preference studies, thereby using the results of field studies and living labs. Policy makers and researchers should allow users to access public AVs in test phases, so that users can generate positive experiences. This is expected to reduce future efforts of encouraging the use of this new technology, before its implementation.