Self-driving vehicles are the latest innovation in improving personal mobility and road safety by removing arguably error-prone humans from driving-related tasks. Such advances can prove especially beneficial for people who are blind or have low vision who cannot legally operate conventional motor vehicles. Missing from the related literature, we argue, are studies that describe strategies for vehicle design for these persons. We present a case study of the participatory design of a prototype for a self-driving vehicle human-machine interface (HMI) for a graduate-level course on inclusive design and accessible technology. We reflect on the process of working alongside a co-designer, a person with a visual disability, to identify user needs, define design ideas, and produce a low-fidelity prototype for the HMI. This paper may benefit researchers interested in using a similar approach for designing accessible autonomous vehicle technology.
INTRODUCTION
The rise of autonomous vehicles (AVs) may prove to be one of the most significant innovations in personal mobility of the past century. Advances in automated vehicle technology and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) specifically, may have a significant impact on road safety and a reduction in vehicle accidents (Brinkley et al., 2017; Dearen, 2018). According to the Department of Transportation (DoT), automated vehicles could help reduce road accidents caused by human error by as much as 94% (SAE International, n.d.).
In addition to reducing traffic accidents and saving lives and property, autonomous vehicles may also prove to be of significant value to persons who cannot otherwise operate conventional motor vehicles. AVs may provide the necessary mobility, for instance, to help create new employment opportunities for nearly 40 million Americans with disabilities (Claypool et al., 2017; Guiding Eyes for the Blind, 2019), for instance. Advocates for the visually impaired specifically have expressed how “transformative” this technology can be for those who are blind or have significant low vision (Winter, 2015); persons who cannot otherwise legally operate a motor vehicle.
While autonomous vehicles have the potential to break down transportation
more »
« less
UTT: A Conceptual Model to Guide the Universal Design of Autonomous Vehicles
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are closer to becoming a reality in changing the landscape of commercial and
personal transportation. The launch of these vehicles come with the promise of improved road safety, reduced
traffic fatalities, and enhanced mobility. However, there are questions as to whether the design of AVs will
meet the needs of everyone, including people with disabilities and older adults. We argue that there exists
no conceptual model that guide sthe inclusive design of autonomous vehicles to benefit all intended users.
This paper proposes such a model, called the User Transportation-Activity Technology (UTT) model, which
supports the inclusive design of AVs. We present a review of current models of assistive technology design
and their drawbacks followed by an introduction of the UTT model and its application in AV design. This
paper may benefit researchers, designers, and developers of autonomous vehicles interested in addressing
accessible design issues in such vehicles.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1849924
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10328672
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
- ISSN:
- 1071-1813
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are envisioned to enhance safety and efficiency on the road, increase productivity, and positively impact the urban transportation system. Due to recent developments in autonomous driving (AD) technology, AVs have started moving on the road. However, this promising technology has many unique security challenges that have the potential to cause traffic accidents. Though some researchers have exploited and addressed specific security issues in AD, there is a lack of a systematic approach to designing security solutions using a comprehensive threat model. A threat model analyzes and identifies potential threats and vulnerabilities. It also identifies the attacker model and proposes mitigation strategies based on known security solutions. As an emerging cyber-physical system, the AD system requires a well-designed threat model to understand the security threats and design solutions. This paper explores security issues in the AD system and analyzes the threat model using the STRIDE threat modeling process. We posit that our threat model-based analysis will help improve AVs' security and guide researchers toward developing secure AVs.more » « less
-
Autonomous vehicles (AV), one of the transportation industry’s biggest innovations of the past few decades, bring the promise of safer roads and significantly lower vehicle-related fatalities. While many studies have found largely positive consumer opinions regarding operating and owning such a vehicle, older adults (55+) tend to express concerns about the safety and operational risks of a vehicle with unknown capabilities. To investigate how older adults and AVs may interact, we conducted an improv- style enactment-based participatory design pilot study. We found that initial concerns about trust and safety can be diminished through training and repetitive successful vehicle operation. Additionally, our participants provided insights into the AV design considerations, needs, and interactions for older adults. These findings add to the collective body of autonomous vehicle research by demonstrating that the needs of this growing population, who may benefit significantly from access to AVs, should be considered by manufacturers.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)The design of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and the design of AV-enabled mobility systems are closely coupled. Indeed, knowledge about the intended service of AVs would impact their design and deployment process, whilst insights about their technological development could significantly affect transportation management decisions. This calls for tools to study such a coupling and co-design AVs and AV-enabled mobility systems in terms of different objectives. In this paper, we instantiate a framework to address such co-design problems. In particular, we leverage the recently developed theory of co-design to frame and solve the problem of designing and deploying an intermodal Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand system, whereby AVs service travel demands jointly with public transit, in terms of fleet sizing, vehicle autonomy, and public transit service frequency. Our framework is modular and compositional, allowing one to describe the design problem as the interconnection of its individual components and to tackle it from a system-level perspective. To showcase our methodology, we present a real-world case study for Washington D.C., USA. Our work suggests that it is possible to create user-friendly optimization tools to systematically assess costs and benefits of interventions, and that such analytical techniques might gain a momentous role in policy-making in the future.more » « less
-
Transportation has been experiencing disruptive forces in recent years. One key disruption is the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) that will be capable of navigating roadways on their own without the need for human presence in the vehicle. In a utopian scenario, AVs may enter the transportation landscape and foster a more sustainable and livable ecosystem with shared autonomous electric vehicles (SAEV) serving mobility needs and eliminating the need for private ownership. In a more dystopian scenario, AVs would be personally owned by households—enabling people to live farther away from destinations, inducing additional travel, and roaming roadways with zero occupants. Concerned with the potential deleterious effects of having personal AVs running errands autonomously, this paper aims to shed light on the level of interest in sending AVs to run errands and how that variable affects the intent to own an AV. Using data from a survey conducted in 2019 in four automobile-oriented metropolitan regions in the United States, the relationship is explored through a joint model system estimated using the generalized heterogeneous data model (GHDM) methodology. Results show that even after accounting for socio-economic and demographic variables as well as latent attitudinal constructs, the level of interest in having AVs run errands has a positive and significant effect on AV ownership intent. The findings point to the need for policies that would steer the entry and use of AVs in the marketplace in ways that avoid a dystopian future.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
