Abstract
Social acceptance is one of the challenges for the introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs). In this research, on the theme of social acceptance, a questionnaire survey and analysis were conducted in Town of Sakai, Ibaraki Prefecture, focusing on “civic pride” (CP) to see what kind of impact AVs will have after their implementation. The results revealed that people who had ridden AVs had higher social acceptability of AVs, including an awareness of approval or disapproval, and higher CP and subjective well-being than those who had ridden AVs. Through the Structural Equation Modeling, it was also shown that the social acceptability of AVs in Town of Sakai increases, which in turn increases CP and contributes to the citizens' sense of well-being, further indicating that AVs are a source of CP in Town of Sakai. These results confirm that there were advantages to introducing AVs in terms of CP.
