A Last-100-Meters User Acceptance Issue: Navigating Fully Autonomous Vehicles through on-Board Navigation Systems

As the navigation interface of fully autonomous vehicles (FAV) will be wholly dependent on On-board Navigation Systems (ONS), it is foreseeable that ONS will replace steering wheels as the primary control mode of future FAVs. Thus, the ease of setting precise destinations using ONS may become a key factor affecting FAV user acceptance. A survey (N = 200) comprising Navigation Anxiety Questionnaire and User Preference Questionnaire reveals the user’s acceptable measurements of distance error and execution time when navigating FAVs in six common situations. Subsequently, an in-vehicle simulation test (N = 24) found most participants in the simulation test performed worse than the user’s acceptable measurements obtained through the questionnaire survey, which indicated that the existing ONS failed to meet users’ expectations for the FAV navigation experience. Findings of the questionnaire survey and the simulation test reveal a severe “last-100 meters” issue when controlling FAVs by ONS, and that destination familiarity, gender difference, text input behavior, map scale, and map display mode should be seriously considered when designing ONS for FAV control.