# Public Perception of the Introduction of Autonomous Vehicles
## 2 Materials and Methods

Table 1: _Cont._For the purposes of this study, two dependent variables were used based on the following questions: \"To what extent do you see benefits from the transition to autonomous vehicles?\" and \"To what extent do you see risks from the transition to autonomous vehicles?\". These questions aim to analyse the public's awareness of AVs. One of the hypotheses is that those who are better informed of the broader benefits of driverless transport could have a higher interest in buying an AV with a higher level of automation sooner, compared to those who are less informed of the overall benefits. In terms of the grouping strategy, the categories for user demographics, such as gender, age, and education level were designed based on previous studies in the field [22]. The inclusion of these variables was intended to test whether there are any differences between the categories in relation to the adoption of AVs. For example, previous studies found that age and gender might affect consumers' willingness to use driverless vehicles; for example, those who are men and young are more likely to have positive attitudes towards AVs [23; 24; 25; 26]. In addition, the survey included two clustering questions that specify the typical members of major stakeholder groups and their roles in their organisation. This provides a better quality of findings through classifying them according to specific groupings. That enables us to determine the causal relationships between the public's awareness of AVs and their status of belonging in various stakeholder groups. Further to this, prior knowledge of AVs was examined, as participants were asked whether they have ever heard about or seen an autonomous vehicle before participating in this survey. This allowed us to better understand their perception of AVs. For example, those who have seen AVs before have different biases from those who have just heard about AVs, and subsequently from those who have never heard about or seen AVs at all. These three distinct categories were beneficial in categorising responses into groups for representing their varied perception of AVs based on prior knowledge. In terms of customer opinions and preferences, we asked about the willingness to buy a vehicle with a certain level of AV technology. We asked about the timing of the purchase as well as opinions of car ownership. Finally, we enquired about their expectations for the timing of full AV introduction in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was distributed online to residents of Saudi Arabia and was accessible for two weeks, starting on the 20 June 2022 and closing on the 3 July 2022. During this period, a total of 115 surveys were finalised, but just 108 were considered to be valid, among respondents aged 18 and over. Out of 108 participants, 17.6% were women and 82.4% were men. Nobody selected the \"prefer not to say\" option. Table 2 presents the demographic characteristics of the 2022 Saudi Arabia survey. Since each group has more than 15 samples, it enables us to include an independent samples \(t\)-test for each demographic to compare the gender differences. The results showed a range of credentials in terms of age, level of education, and current management role. The respondents' ages ranged from 18 to over 55, where the majority of participants (40.75%) were in the age group of 26-35 years old (compared with 19.25% nationally [27]). The younger age group, aged 18-25 years old, represents 22.22% of the sample (compared with 13% nationally [27]), while middle-age group, aged 36-55 years old, represented 36.11% of the sample (compared with 32.9% nationally [27]). More than half of the participants (>52%) have a higher education level (master's degree or another postgraduate degree). This demographic differs from the previous studies [28; 29] and is higher than recent studies [30; 31]. The survey has also involved a question about the currently used mode of transport. The majority of respondents (96.3%) are car owners. Just 3.7% of respondents use public transport.