Persons with physical disabilities and autonomous vehicles: The perspective of the driving status

Improving access to transportation and ensuring transportation equity for persons with physical disabilities is one of the global challenges. Autonomous vehicles are pointed out as the potential solution to these problems. The views of persons with physical disabilities about autonomous vehicles differed sharply and substantially compared to non-disabled and other persons with disabilities. Therefore, this paper investigates differences in acceptance of autonomous vehicles among different groups of persons with physical disabilities. The driving status criterion was used because this fact significantly impacts the quality of life and social status. The paper's main contribution is to help create policies and practices related to autonomous vehicles following the real needs of persons with physical disabilities. The research was conducted in a country with vast problems of inclusion of persons with disabilities and transportation equity - Serbia. The Bayesian linear regression models were created with weakly informative prior distributions. We found that non-drivers with physical disabilities prefer to use autonomous vehicles more than drivers. The key issues of the successful introduction of autonomous vehicles are attitudes, accessibility, and trust. Autonomous vehicles present an excellent opportunity to improve mobility and trans-portation equity for non-drivers with physical disabilities. Transportation stakeholders, vehicle manufacturers, and representative associations of persons with disabilities should cooperate closely, respecting the concept & bdquo;Nothing about us, without us. ". One solution for resolving recognized challenges is introducing autonomous vehicles in the public transport system following accessibility, reliability, and safety principles.