An exploratory empirical analysis of willingness to pay for and use flying cars

From the early years of aviation, flying cars have constituted an appealing topic for science-fiction scenarios. Currently, recent technological developments demonstrate that flying cars will be introduced in the traffic fleet over the next few years. Despite their forthcoming penetration in the automobile market, the level of anticipated acceptance from the traveling population has not been investigated yet in travel demand literature. This study aims – for the first time to the authors' knowledge – to provide a preliminary investigation of individuals' perceptions and expectations towards the adoption of flying cars. For this purpose, 692 individuals were questioned in the context of an online survey about their willingness to pay for and willingness to use flying cars for various pricing and trip scenarios, as well as about the benefits and concerns that will arise from the introduction of flying cars in the traffic fleet. To understand the determinants of individuals' expectations, their willingness to pay for and use flying cars was statistically modeled, by employing a grouped random parameters bivariate probit framework, which accounts for multiple layers of unobserved heterogeneity in the respondent's decision-making process. The statistical analysis revealed that various individual-specific socio-demographic, behavioral and driving attributes, as well as individuals' attitudinal perspectives towards the cost, safety, security and environmental implications of the flying cars, affect their willingness to adopt this emerging transportation technology. Despite the current limited awareness about the operation of flying cars, the findings of this study can provide insights regarding critical challenges that should be addressed by policymakers, legislative companies, and manufacturing companies after the introduction of flying cars in the traffic fleet.