Modeling Americans’ autonomous vehicle preferences: A focus on dynamic ride-sharing, privacy & long-distance mode choices

•2588 American households responded to detailed survey on (fully) automated vehicles (AVs).•Mid-income households favor renting shared AVs (SAVs) for long-distance trips.•Shared AVs also preferred for long-distance business trips under 500 miles.•Lack of a driver's license significantly increases willingness to share rides with strangers.•Those of higher income and younger age also much more likely to share rides in SAVs. Rapid advances in technologies have accelerated the timeline for public use of fully-automated and communications-connected vehicles. Public opinion on self-driving vehicles or AVs is evolving rapidly, and many behavioral questions have not yet been addressed. This study emphasizes AV mode choices, including Americans’ willingness to pay (WTP) to ride with a stranger in a shared AV fleet vehicle on various trip types and the long-distance travel impacts of AVs. Exactly 2,588 complete responses to a stated-preference survey with 70 questions provide valuable insights on privacy concerns, safety and dynamic ride-sharing with strangers, long-distance travel and preferences for smarter vehicles and transport systems. Two hurdle models (which allow for a high share of zero-value responses) were estimated: one to predict WTP to share a ride and another to determine WTP to anonymize location while using AVs, and a multinomial logit was developed to estimate long-distance mode choices with AVs and SAVs available. Results suggest that WTP to share rides will rise over time, for a variety of reasons, and SAV use will be particularly popular for long-distance business travel. Elasticity estimates suggest that privacy may not be an important concern for AV-based travel.