Who benefits? Australian public perceptions of safety and justice in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs)

Laura Martínez-Buelvas; Andry Rakotonirainy; Deanna Grant-Smith; Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios

doi:10.1007/s00146-026-03289-y

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Who benefits? Australian public perceptions of safety and justice in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs)

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Who benefits? Australian public perceptions of safety and justice in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs)

Laura Martínez-Buelvas, Andry Rakotonirainy, Deanna Grant-Smith and Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios

AI & Society, Vol.Advanced access

28-Aug-2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-03289-y

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Abstract

Human rights and justice issues (excl. law)

Transport geography

Urban policy

Road safety

connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs)

transport justice

vulnerable road users (VRUs)

transport safety

road safety

transport policy

The integration of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) into everyday mobility systems raises profound ethical and societal challenges, particularly concerning safety, justice, and the treatment of vulnerable road users (VRUs). This study examines Australian public perceptions of the fairness, safety, and legitimacy of CAV deployment, investigating how exposure to information related to ethics and justice influences acceptance and evaluative perceptions related to trust (including perceived safety, fairness, and institutional confidence). An online survey of 384 respondents (aged 18–82) employed a before-and-after design, in which respondents evaluated CAVs before and after engaging with an infographic outlining key justice and safety dilemmas. Awareness of CAVs was widespread (95.3%), primarily shaped by media narratives rather than direct experience. Whilst over half of respondents expressed optimism about the potential of CAVs to improve safety and fairness, substantial proportions raised concerns about equity, transparency, and procedural justice. Following exposure to the infographic, positive perceptions declined slightly but not significantly, suggesting that attitudes are shaped by deeper moral and institutional expectations rather than informational effects. Open-ended responses revealed recurring anxieties about affordability, infrastructure readiness, technological reliability, and governance accountability, alongside ethical concerns related to VRU prioritisation, liability, privacy, and algorithmic decision-making in critical situations. These findings highlight a cautious public stance towards automation, one that accepts its promise but questions its fairness, underscoring the need for reflexive, transparent, and participatory governance frameworks to ensure that AI-driven mobility evolves in alignment with societal values and distributive justice.

Details

Title: Who benefits? Australian public perceptions of safety and justice in connected and automated vehicles (CAVs)
Authors: Laura Martínez-Buelvas (Corresponding Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Andry Rakotonirainy (Author) - Queensland University of Technology
Deanna Grant-Smith (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios (Author) - Delft University of Technology
Publication details: AI & Society, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Springer UK
DOI: 10.1007/s00146-026-03289-y
ISSN: 0951-5666
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Data Availability: All data supporting the findings are presented within the manuscript. Due to the conditions of the ethics approval, the survey dataset cannot be made publicly available at this time.
Grant note: This research is funded by iMOVE CRC and supported by the Cooperative Research Centres program, an Australian Government initiative [Project code: 5-006].
Organisation Unit: School of Business and Creative Industries
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991252796302621
Output Type: Journal article

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