Autonomous Vehicle Risk and Public Acceptance Framework

We are addressing the challenge that adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs) may be constrained by public perceptions of their social value, even if the technology is technically ready. Designing policies that encourage AV adoption in ways that maximize societal benefit is difficult because it requires understanding human behavior at both individual and collective levels, developing reliable survey instruments for technologies that respondents have not yet experienced, and navigating competing interests among city residents, commuters, industry stakeholders, and safety advocates. Our approach is to build a framework that couples public opinion with policy scenarios, using simulation to evaluate and validate the effects of potential policies. This work follows an iterative cycle in which insights from surveys and simulations inform one another, enabling continuous refinement of AV policy in the near-, mid-, and long-term.