Towards understanding user adoption of urban air mobility

Abstract

Recent advances in areas of autonomous vehicles and shared mobility services have been accompanied with a research interest in urban air mobility (UAM). This service however remains subject to many limitations, notably community acceptance. In this paper, a study on the perception of UAM is presented, in which a stated preference survey was completed to assess its time adoption. Obtained results were evaluated using exploratory factor analysis, followed by discrete choice models including multinomial logit models and ordered logit models, with time adoption as a dependent variable. Results highlighted the importance of safety and trust, affinity to automation, data concerns, social attitude, and socio-demographics for adoption. Factors such as time savings, costs of automation, and service reliability were strongly influential as well. There was also an indication that skeptical respondents, i.e. choosing unsure, had a behavior similar to late adopters. The summarized results helped to extend the Technology Acceptance Model to be applied for urban air mobility, providing meaningful recommendations and policy implications.