Autonomous vehicle modality preferences among those with and without vision loss

As autonomous vehicles are implemented worldwide, they are expected to significantly impact people with vision loss. This study compared the perceived future adoption of different autonomous vehicle types among the blind, visually impaired, and normally sighted and determined predictive factors of adoption by vehicle type. A total of 207 participants were surveyed on how automation would affect their use of five autonomous vehicle types: private vehicles, rideshares, bus systems, trains/subways, and paratransit systems. This study showed that private autonomous vehicles had higher perceived adoption than any other autonomous vehicle modality for blind (p < 0.001) and visually impaired (p < 0.005) individuals. Automation of private vehicles was met with perceived increase in usage among the blind and visually impaired (p < 0.005, p < 0.001 respectively) but reduction in usage by the normally sighted (p = 0.02). Rideshare usage increased with automation among the blind (p = 0.003) and decreased among the normally sighted (p < 0.001), and no vision status group demonstrated a perceived change in usage of buses, trains/subways, and paratransit vehicles (p > 0.07, p > 0.11, p > 0.09, respectively) with their automation. Worsening visual field, contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity were all associated with increased perceived use of only private use and rideshare autonomous vehicles (p < 0.001, for all). This study indicates that autonomous private and rideshare vehicles will be adopted the most by visually impaired and blind individuals, while other modalities may see little change in ridership. It is likely that the modality of autonomous vehicles will impact the usability or desirability of the different vehicle types among those with and without vision loss.