It looks like men are far more likely than women to want to try out autonomous ride sharing services.

A survey for the driverless car initiative Project Endeavour has found 58% of men, compared to 35% of women say they would be happy to be early adopters of any new technology.

In a study by DG Cities, carried out before the Coronavirus Crisis, people were asked about their attitudes to autonomous vehicles and ride sharing.

Almost all said public transport was cramped, and three quarters felt it unclean. Two fifths are already happy to use ride sharing, because of convenience and money saving. Three quarters of those who haven’t say they think it’ll be unpredictable and two thirds are worried about sharing with strangers.

Men were also more likely than women to be happy using a driverless service in the future (58% vs 37%), with the researchers suggesting this could be because more women than men  (58% versus 49%) indicated that safety concerns regarding sharing a vehicle with strangers was a barrier to them using an Autonomous Vehicle Ridesharing service.

The researchers say the data gathered from the 2019 survey represents their baseline research for understanding people’s perceptions of autonomous vehicles. They will use the information presented in this survey to inform future user research that aims to address design concerns of autonomous vehicle ride-sharing services.

You can read the full report here.

(Picture – Project Endeavour, DG Cities)