Evaluating perceived safety of autonomous vehicle: The influence of privacy and cybersecurity to cognitive and emotional safety

The autonomous vehicle (AV) is predicted to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities on the roads caused by human-related error and lessen traffic congestion caused by stop-and-go behavior. The susceptibility of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to potential hacking and data exploitation has generated significant concerns regarding cybersecurity and privacy risks within the domain of perceived safety. This study aimed to empirically test a comprehensive model of perceived safety in AVs, incorporating cognitive safety, emotional safety, and privacy cybersecurity. The responses of 466 participants were analyzed using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The findings indicated that a significant majority of the respondents expressed their intention to utilize high-level autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the future. Specifically, 31.1% of the participants expressed an intention to use a level 2 AV, while 8.8% indicated their preference for a level 5 AV. In terms of perceived safety, privacy cybersecurity emerged as the most influential predictor, followed by emotional safety and cognitive safety. The analysis of causal relationships between the variables further revealed that privacy cybersecurity had the greatest impact on both emotional safety and cognitive safety, highlighting its critical role in shaping the overall perception of safety in AVs. Finally, this study can provide insight into how the drivers perceives AVs safety, which can be useful for government organizations, transportation agencies, and AV developers in shaping AV safety.