Design for Autonomous Mobility

DAM, with its team of Industrial Designers, has the role to design Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) for public transport and their related infrastructure (e.g., stations) for greater comfort and a positive travel experience for users. The designed concepts have to fulfil two main requirements: promote user acceptance and facilitate the operation of autonomously driven vehicles for public transport.

Beyond the consideration of the Universal Design principles, DAM investigates the advantages of new tools like Virtual Reality (VR) and pedestrian simulations that are not yet widely used within the designer community.

Furthermore, empirical research is conducted to define the Human Factors that need to be taken into consideration for design. These Human Factors help for the definition of Personas (i.e., goal-oriented user profiles) that guarantee that user needs and expectations are considered throughout the design process of AVs integrated to public transport. The outputs of the research are design concepts for AVs and infrastructure as well as novel methodologies for design.

The Industrial Designers of DAM have the role to design the DART vehicle to be of greater comfort and a positive travel experience for users than current public transport services. Following topics are under investigation:

• Human Machine Interfaces for AVs
• Crowd simulation tool for design of vehicle interior layout
• Station retrofitting for AVs including guidance / wayfinding system
• Secondary use of AVs for freight, postal delivery or shuttle services

DART module – exterior (source: TUMCREATE)

DART module – interior overview (source: TUMCREATE)

Building up experimental setups in real-life conditions to test the vehicles and mobility concepts would be a complex endeavour: It would be costly in terms of both money and time, and could be unsafe for potential test persons. Therefore, with the help of Virtual Reality (VR), alternative research methods are investigated by DAM to run experiments in a reliable way that keeps costs and time spent to a minimum while maximizing safety for test persons.

Industrial Designers consider Virtual Reality as a tool for:

• Problem identification in VR
• Ideation workshops in VR with experts’ immersion
• Usability Testing in VR with physiological sensors
• Presentation of design concepts in VR and immersive experience

Possible set-up for experiment within VR (source: TUMCREATE)

Public acceptance and adoption are major challenges to overcome with the introduction of DART. Research into user needs, and desires is part of the human-centric design approach taken by DAM. Results of this Work Package inform the design of DART stations, vehicles and human-machine interfaces (HMI).

Human Factors and Personas are defined for public transport in Singapore and following studies are on-going:

• Mobility Journeys in Singapore
• Research on Attitude to AVs
• Human-centred Impact Assessment
• Case study: Virtual Companion for public transport

Mobility Journeys in Singapore (source: TUMCREATE)

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