Ranking the criteria for autonomous vehicle adoption from different stakeholders’ viewpoints with a grey AHP model

Evaluating the implementation and adoption perspectives of new technologies requires a sophisticated decision-making process. Moreover, multiple groups of stakeholders can be involved in the process, and their aspects should be considered by a decision support methodology. Therefore, this study employs the Grey Analytic Hierarchy Process (grey AHP) to rank the criteria for autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption from various stakeholders’ perspectives, such as users, legislators, operators, and manufacturers. The Grey AHP, which integrates grey system theory with the traditional AHP to model uncertainty with interval-based judgments, provides a more robust framework for capturing the variability in expert evaluations. The comprehensive approach of the study integrates EU-based stakeholders’ viewpoints, thus providing a balanced framework for understanding the complex trade-offs involved in AV adoption while considering the possible vague evaluations by using grey sets. The analysis reveals that safety is the paramount criterion across all stakeholder groups, as evidenced both by its emergence as the top-ranked factor and by the high combined weight of safety-related criteria. The user group indicates higher willingness and desire reduced fuel consumption and in-vehicle travel time, while ignoring reduction in insurance. For manufacturers, increase in safety criterion stands out, making it by far the most influential factor compared to all other criteria. Similarly, for legislators, increased vehicle and passenger safety criterion emerges as the most influential criterion. In the overall assessment of the results aiming to guide the future development of AV technology, a holistic approach is necessary prioritizing safety, reliability, and affordability, while also addressing emerging issues, such as data privacy and cybersecurity.