Dual-path associations between system operation quality and autonomous taxi use intention in a cross-sectional survey

Residents of Wuhan, Suzhou, and Shanghai who had heard of or been exposed to autonomous taxi services completed an anonymous 5-point Likert questionnaire. System transparency, system safety, and service quality were modeled as operation-quality dimensions; perceived risk and online word-of-mouth (OWOM) information evaluation were tested as parallel statistical mediators, with trust and conformity tendency as moderators.

Of 850 submitted questionnaires, 18 failed the attention check, 9 failed the lie-detection item, and 20 met the prespecified absolute standardized Z-score screening criterion of 3, leaving 803 cases in the primary analytic sample. Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable reliability and validity, and the structural model showed acceptable fit (χ²/df = 2.806, RMSEA = 0.047, CFI = 0.939). All three operation-quality dimensions were associated with lower perceived risk, more favorable OWOM information evaluation, and greater intention to use.