One of the main causes of lack of acceptance in innovation is ignoring the needs and preferences of potential customers in the development phases. In the case of the connected automated vehicle (CAV), there is an important degree of user skepticism based on the awareness of the complexity and the risks of this technology. Public acceptance is a multi-faceted construct, tightly related to emotional processes and trust in a new technology, beyond the accomplishment of functional performance. However, the current approach based on the technology push threatens social viability of innovative technology like CAV, as it creates a gap between the well-thought technical reliability and public acceptance.
The SUaaVE project (SUpporting acceptance of automated VEhicle) aims to make a change in the current situation of public acceptance of CAV by leaning on a Human-Driven Design (HDD) approach, enhancing synergies social science, human factors research and automotive market by means of an iterative process of assessment, co-design and prototyping.
The application of the HDD approach in SUaaVE will be materialized through two different and complementary approaches:
- At societal level, with the formulation of frameworks to enlarge public acceptance in the deployment of CAVs for all the potentially involved society; current and new drivers as well as VRUs.
- At individual level, under the conceptualization of ALFRED, understood as the integration of the emotional experience of the passenger and ethical principles in the artificial intelligence (AI) that manages the control of highly automated CAVs.
SUaaVE emerges from a participatory process promoting collaborative and co-design methods to empower end-users as well as other stakeholders, ensuring the acceptance of this concept from a societal and individual perspective. In this line, SUaaVE has involved more than 6900 citizens from seven EU countries and the UK, as future users in a broad sense: current drivers, new drivers and passengers (children, senior citizens and people with disabilities) and other road users like Vulnerable Road Users (VRU).
The result of the project will benefit society representing a breakthrough in the public acceptance of future CAVs for both the society as a whole and, in particular, for all road users. Furthermore, in the case of industry, SUaaVE will facilitate a better integration of human factor in the deployment of CAV by tackling a Human Driven Design approach, promoting a competitive advantage of European automobile manufacturers to keep and extend their leadership in transport industry all over the world.
