Autonomous delivery vehicle acceptance: The moderating role of perceived risk of theft

This paper assesses the public acceptance of Autonomous Delivery Vehicles (ADVs) by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), incorporating subjective norms, environmental concerns, and hedonic motivations alongside the original TAM constructs. The perceived security risk of theft is also defined and included in the model to explore its moderating role. Data was collected from an online survey of 1567 participants in different cities in Iran. The survey incorporated two open-ended questions as part of a qualitative approach to assessing control beliefs, exploring both the facilitators and barriers influencing people’s intentions. Based on structural equation modeling, findings highlight the strong impact of subjective norms and perceived usefulness on intention, along with the significant effect of attitudes and environmental concern. The moderating effect of the perceived security risk of theft is significant in perceived ease of use and hedonic motivations’ interactions with attitudes. Exploring the responses from open-ended questions showed that the majority of respondents perceived that using ADVs could help the environment, while the risk of stealing ADVs was identified as the main barrier to adopting them in urban settings.