Comparing public concern and support for drone regulation to the current legal framework

Abstract

In this study we assess the extent to which the regulations governing the use of drones in the United States address the concerns held by the public they are meant to protect. In general, respondents were most supportive of those regulations that could be categorized as limiting one's exposure to an unwanted drone. The most popular policies were those that protected personal privacy, while the least popular were those that hampered drones used for public safety. The largest discrepancy was found to be respondents' preference for laws protecting personal privacy compared with the lack of regulatory constraints currently in place. Federal regulators have only begun to introduce regulations on how drones can be used in our national airspace, with additional regulations for other types and sizes of drones likely to be introduced in the future. The results of this study may be utilized by regulators and lawmakers to create a regulatory structure that effectively mitigates risk and supports the public interest.

Consumer preferences for innovative and traditional last-mile parcel delivery

“…Their deployment in broader delivery services and large-scale industrial applications may only be a few steps away as the advantages of dronesfast delivery at relatively low costare increasingly noted (Merkert and Bushell, 2020;Boysen et al, 2021). However, the public acceptance concerns have been evidenced in relation to ethics and privacy (Luppicini and So, 2016) as well as safety, security and public concerns regarding regulation (Zwickle et al, 2019) and use of drones in urban areas (Watkins et al, 2020). Issues such as "fear of theft" and "fear of delivery to an incorrect address" (UPS, 2016) and technological malfunctions are also an area of concern (Zhu, 2019).…”

“…Despite, or perhaps because of, such hype around aerial delivery drones, it is worth asking whether the cautious consumer values such services and whether there is indeed a market for them. The general public has privacy, safety and security concerns around the use of aerial drones (Zwickle et al, 2019;Watkins et al, 2020;Merkert et al, 2021), especially in the context of unattended delivery of valuable shipments (McKinnon and Tallam, 2003;Zhou et al, 2020). Setting out, our research was guided by Svanberg (2020).…”

Crashed! Why Drone Delivery Is Another Tech Idea not Ready to Take Off

“…General public perception of drone food delivery services was on the negative side in that it is unregulated, dangerous, and risky (CAA, 2016). The fear, anxiety, or concern over the erosion of one's rights due to the lack of quantified risk assessments on drone delivery was hindering people from using drone for food delivery services (Zwickle et al, 2019). Besides, regulations focusing on protecting consumer privacy and security have been minimal, putting consumers' safety at risk (Chang et al, 2017).…”

“…Businesses relied on consumers' behavioural intentions analysis to increase revenue and customer engagement, trust, and loyalty on drone delivery services (Kumar, 2017;Zwickle et al, 2019). While the government relied on the analysis of consumers' behavioural intentions to use drone delivery services to advance the technologies and economic activities in the country (Avanti, 2019;McFarland, 2017;Dost and Maier, 2018).…”

“…Chang et al (2017) stated that the reason why the regulations focusing on consumers' privacy and security when using drone delivery have been minimal was due to the low awareness of privacy and security among the users. In contrast, Zwickle et al (2019) stated that the lack of regulations that focus on privacy and security to protect consumers when using drone delivery was due to the large discrepancy in consumers' preferences for legal protection on personal privacy. Kapser and Abdelrahman (2020) found that price was the strongest predictor for consumers' behavioural intentions to use drone food delivery services, followed by performance expectancy, which includes functions and usefulness of drone delivery, hedonic motivation, perceived risk, social influences, and facilitating conditions.…”