Virtual Reality Experiment to Study the Role of Social Conformity in the Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles: Taxi Passenger Choice Data, 2022-2023

The Veronica project data includes two parts: taxi passenger choice data and pedestrian crossing data. This part primarily involves taxi passenger choice data. The key motivation for the study is to measure the acceptance of fully automated taxis using immersive virtual reality simulations. This approach aims to simulate urban living conditions where fully automated taxis are operating, providing a realistic context in which participants can experience this future travel mode. Unlike previous studies, our experiment is built to ensure that the SC experiment in the VR-based environment is perfectly comparable with the standard SC screen-based, for internal validity. A control group is also used to test the order effect in the presentation of the two surveys, and to control for the carryover effect. The data collection was respectively conducted in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) and Toronto (Canada) between 1 June 2022 and 23 November 2023. For each city, it includes three datasets incorporating 1. results of stated choice experiments through immersive virtual reality and online survey. 2. results of respondents' socioeconomic and travel characteristics; and 3. results of attitudinal questions.

维罗妮卡项目（Veronica project）数据集包含两部分：出租车乘客选择数据与行人过街数据。本数据集主要聚焦于出租车乘客选择数据模块。本研究的核心动机为，借助沉浸式虚拟现实（immersive virtual reality）模拟场景，评估用户对完全自动驾驶出租车的接受度。该方案旨在还原完全自动驾驶出租车常态化运营的城市生活情境，为参与者提供沉浸式体验未来出行模式的真实场景。与既往研究不同，本实验旨在确保基于虚拟现实环境的陈述性选择（stated choice, SC）实验，与标准屏幕式陈述性选择实验具备完全可比性，以此保障实验内部效度。此外，本研究设置对照组，用于检验两项调查的呈现顺序效应，并控制携带效应（carryover effect）。数据采集工作于2022年6月1日至2023年11月23日期间，分别在英国纽卡斯尔（Newcastle upon Tyne）与加拿大多伦多（Toronto）开展。针对每个调研城市，数据集均涵盖三部分内容：1. 基于沉浸式虚拟现实与在线调查的陈述性选择实验结果；2. 受访者社会经济属性与出行特征数据；3. 态度类问卷调研结果。