Autonomous driving is expected to change individual travel behavior significantly. The main reason postulated is an increase in comfort and feasibility of on-board activities which will potentially change the way people perceive time spent in a vehicle and consequently their mode preferences. Understanding how value of time (VoT) might change and what will determine such change can be crucial when assessing the impact of vehicle automation. Recent studies address potential changes that automation might have on VoT based on analyses of time use and perception in current modes of transport or focusing only on the utility of driving autonomously. However, there is a lack of research addressing both—the utility of car driving compared with the utility of riding autonomously—from the user perspective. To address this research question, focus group discussions with car drivers were conducted. The data was analyzed using a thematic qualitative text analysis. The results suggest that the utility of car driving today, including aspects of driving pleasure, various (passive) activities performed in the car, and also driving as an activity itself, will counterbalance to a certain extent the effect of the benefits of autonomous driving, such as improved travel experience and feasibility of activities. Moreover, context-related and individual characteristics shape these effects. This paper summarizes the main study results, including potential short- and long-term travel behavior changes resulting from the availability of autonomous driving. Lastly, implications from the qualitative research for quantitative studies on value of travel time savings for autonomous vehicles are discussed.

自动驾驶有望大大改变个人的出行行为。推测的主要原因是增加了车载活动的舒适性和可行性，这可能会改变人们对花费在车辆上的时间的感知方式，从而改变他们的模式偏好。在评估车辆自动化的影响时，了解时间价值（VoT）可能如何变化以及由什么决定这种变化可能至关重要。最近的研究基于对当前交通方式中的时间使用和感知的分析，或者仅关注自动驾驶的实用性，来解决自动化可能对VoT产生的潜在变化。但是，从用户的角度来看，缺乏针对这两者的研究（汽车驾驶的实用性与自主驾驶的实用性相比）。为了解决这个研究问题，与汽车驾驶员进行了焦点小组讨论。使用主题定性文本分析来分析数据。结果表明，当今汽车驾驶的效用，包括驾驶乐趣，在汽车中进行的各种（被动）活动，以及作为一项活动本身的驾驶，都将在一定程度上抵消自动驾驶的好处，例如改善旅行体验和活动的可行性。此外，与上下文相关的个体特征塑造了这些影响。本文总结了主要研究结果，包括由于自动驾驶的可用性而导致的潜在的短期和长期旅行行为变化。最后，讨论了定性研究对自动驾驶汽车节省旅行时间价值的定量研究的意义。