# Teenagers and Automated Vehicles: Are They Ready to Use Them?
## 4 Results and Discussion
### Post-Pre Survey Results
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l} \hline \hline
**Items of the Questionnaire** & **Pre-Mean** & **Post-Mean** &
\begin{tabular}{l} **Difference** \\ **in Means** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
**Knowledge about AVs** & 3.1 & 4.4 & 1.3 \\ I know what an AV is (***) & 3.2 & 3.9 & 0.7 \\
**Willingness to use AVs—Imagining that AVs will be soon available on the roads** & 2.9 & 3.7 & 0.8 \\ In general, I am willing to use them (*) & 2.4 & 3.4 & 1 \\ I am willing to use an AV with people that I do not know (like today with public transport) (**) & 2.4 & 3.7 & 1.3 \\ \hline
**Privacy—would you agree to share (anonymously) your mobility and transport information (e.g., data about destination, etc.)** & 2.9 & 3.7 & 0.7 \\ with... & 2.9 & 2.9 & 0.9 \\ public authorities (European, national, local) (*) & 3.1 & 3.7 & 0.7 \\ other users (*) & 2.0 & 2.5 & 0.5 \\ private companies & 2.1 & 2.6 & 0.5 \\ international organisations (UN, OECD, etc.) (**) & 3.0 & 3.9 & 0.9 \\ \hline
**Feeling comfortable in an AV—As a passenger of an AV, I would feel comfortable** & 2.9 & 3.7 & 0.7 \\ with the presence of a human operator in the vehicle (e.g., a bus driver) & 3.0 & 3.9 & 0.9 \\ with the remote supervision of a human operator (a person assisting the vehicle from an external computer) (*) & 2.5 & 3.2 & 0.7 \\ without the supervision of a human operator (*) & 2.5 & 3.2 & 0.7 \\ \hline
**Beliefs towards AVs—The deployment of AVs will...** & 2.9 & 3.7 & 0.5 \\ reduce accidents & 2.0 & 2.1 & 0.1 \\ increase accidents & 3.2 & 3.3 & 0.1 \\ be a threat to privacy & 2.9 & 3.0 & 0.1 \\ increase the accessibility for different categories of users (e.g., older people, people with disabilities) (**) & 3.4 & 4.1 & 0.7 \\ allow the use of travel time for non-driving activities (e.g., working, reading, sleeping) & 3.6 & 4 & 0.4 \\ decrease travel costs & 2.3 & 2.5 & 0.2 \\ be safe sharing the road with non-automated vehicles (e.g., cars, trucks) & 2.3 & 2.8 & 0.5 \\ be safe for vulnerable road users (e.g., pedestrians, cyclists, scooter users, motorcyclists) & 2.3 & 2.8 & 0.5 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} (*) \(p\)-value \(\leq\) 0.05; (**) \(p\)-value \(\leq\) 0.01; (***) \(p\)-value \(\leq\) 0.001.  
\end{table} 
Table 2: Item means and Wilcoxon signed-rank test for post-pre survey. In general, the participants showed disagreement with most of the beliefs presented in the survey and a slight agreement with four of them. Thus, the slight agreements were found for the beliefs that AVs would reduce accidents, increase the accessibility for different user categories, allow the use of travel time for non-driving activities, and be a target of cyber-attack. Interestingly, while the teenagers agree that AVs will reduce accidents, they do not consider them safe for vulnerable road users or non-automated vehicles. After the activities, the opinions did not evolve significantly, apart from the belief on accessibility, where participants showed a high agreement (3.4 to 4.1). These results are aligned with the different opinions expressed by the participants during the FGs on the question related to the advantages and disadvantages of using AVs. The observed significant changes between before the activities and after the activities shed light on the areas where people may have a higher propensity to change after the introduction of the technology in the future on one side and where they may have more resistance to the acceptance of AVs on the other side. Thus, from the results of the analysis, it appears that people will have more difficulty in changing their beliefs towards the technology and that particular attention should be given to the beliefs related to safety, which are some of the strongest barriers to the acceptance of AVs [93]. It also appears that the different organised activities impacted positively on the willingness to use the technology even without any human supervision, while the literature is generally conservative on this subject [94].