Analysis of consumer preferences regarding automated driving technology and driving environment: the case of South Korea

This study analysed consumers' preferences regarding the technological attributes of automated vehicles (AV) and the driving environment. We conducted a conjoint survey among 1008 respondents in Korea. Based on the collected data, a utility function was estimated using a mixed logit model, considering the heterogeneity of the respondents' preferences. In the conjoint survey design, we considered six core technological and economic attributes of automated driving: road conditions, weather conditions, ambient lighting conditions, fuel efficiency, automated driving level, and price. The empirical results show high heterogeneity in consumers' attitudes towards AV technologies. By comparing the relative importance of these six attributes, we found that the price of the automated driving option is the most important attribute, followed by road conditions. Furthermore, the predicted market share of AVs, considering their technological evolution, shows that affordable price is an important factor for their diffusion.