Dr. Atkinson-Palombo has received funding from UConn’s Scholarship Facilitation Fund to travel to Arizona in spring 2019 during her sabbatical leave to undertake research into the public’s perceptions of Autonomous Vehicles.  Her study will focus on Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, which has been testing self-driving vehicles in Chandler, Arizona, since April 2017.  During this testing period, which was limited to selected customers, services have been gradually expanded.  Most recently, Waymo announced that it will begin a robotaxi service in Chandler and the neighboring municipalities of Tempe, Gilbert, and Mesa.  Not everyone welcomes the new technology. A recent NY Times article reported that people were trying to run AVs off the road, while others had attacked them with rocks and knives.  The research will contribute to an ongoing effort to better understand the broader impacts of transportation technologies on society that is being carried out by UConn’s Transportation Technology & Society Group, an initiative funded by the Provost’s Academic Plan Award.

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