The evaluation of hydrogen fuel stations by citizens: The interrelated effects of socio-demographic, spatial and psychological variables

•The public acceptability of hydrogen fuel stations in the Netherlands is studied.•The effects of socio-demographic, spatial and psychological variables are tested.•The psychological factors mediate the effect of many of the other variables.•Affect and expected effects factors are the strongest predictors of acceptability.•Distance between dwelling and fuel station has a positive effect on acceptability.

Hydrogen fuel use in vehicles can potentially have positive effects on the environment. The placing of hydrogen fuel stations may, however, be influenced by citizens' responses to them. The current study, therefore, investigates the determinants of citizens’ evaluations of the local implementation of a hydrogen fuel station (called public acceptability). The effects of socio-demographic, spatial and psychological variables are analyzed with the use of regression analyses and structural equation modeling. The results show that the psychological variables explain public acceptability better than the socio-demographic and spatial variables. The strongest predictors are positive affect, negative affect, expected local effects and expected societal and environmental effects. The effects of the determinants on public acceptability are mostly in the expected direction. The effects of most spatial and socio-demographic variables are fully mediated by the psychological variables. An interesting finding is that citizens living nearer to a fuel station location are more negative about the placing of a hydrogen fuel station there than citizens living further away. This is in line with the idea of Not In My Backyard (NIMBY), but contrary to findings in previous hydrogen fuel station acceptability studies. The analyses indicate that those living nearer have a more negative evaluation because they have a lower level of trust in the industry placing and maintaining a safe hydrogen fuel station and less strongly experience positive affect when thinking about the placing of a local hydrogen fuel station.