What Drives Interest in a Driverless Toronto? Survey Results on Scarborough Residents' Interest in Autonomous Vehicles


Yvonne Daoleuxay, University of Toronto

Toronto’s Automated Vehicles (AV) Tactical Plan, adopted in 2020, lays out its vision for a more equitable, environmentally sustainable city by 2050. Barriers to transportation, road safety, and environmental sustainability are some of the goals the city expects to achieve through widespread adoption of AV (including first- and last-mile trips which connect residents to public transit systems). Indeed, there are high hopes that AV will mitigate many problems associated with automobility by democratizing movement for those who are otherwise unable to travel by passenger or transit vehicles. AV is expected to impact infrastructure and the built environment, urban sprawl, and the way we experience movement, yet the public’s interest in AV is low or even declining. Fear of giving up control, especially amongst those who enjoy driving, is one reason why people may resist adopting AV (Howard and Dai 2013); however, a perceived loss of the ability to express one’s individuality through one’s driving style (e.g., being more aggressive) also impacts individuals’ orientation towards AV (Birnbaum et al. 2018). If would-be users are likely to only adopt AV as replacements for private cars with no uptake in public, shared, or active transport, how different will future transportation really systems look? To what extent would automation perpetuate automobility by continuing to relegate other forms of mobility to accommodate private vehicles (Urry 2004)? To get at these questions, a deeper understanding of the public’s perceptions of AV and their daily driving experiences may provide insight into the factors behind late technology adoption. Using descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression, I interpret data collected through the UTSC Suburban Mobilities Scarborough Survey (n=688). The research question I pose is, “What factors are associated with interest in AV in Scarborough, Ontario?” This overarching question can be further broken down into two sub-questions: 1) What sort of daily driving experiences do Scarborough drivers have? 2) What factors can explain how Scarborough residents currently feel about self-driving cars? Understanding how people’s experiences with their travels and other road users may impact their perceptions of new mobility technologies, like autonomous/automated vehicles, brings to light the sociocultural dimensions of car dependence and attachment, making important contributions to research on automobility.

Non-presenting authors: Ignacio Tiznado-Aitken, University of Toronto Scarborough; Shaila Jamal, University of Toronto Scarborough; Steven Farber, University of Toronto Scarborough

This paper will be presented at the following session: