Workshop: Autonomous vehicles: putting people at the heart of the machine

Description of impact

As part of the International Mobility Summit (2022), we ran a workshop to discuss and debate findings from the PAV and Art-Forum projects.

About the event:

The technology associated with personal transportation and mobility is developing rapidly, and in some key respects this can be regarded as part of a continuum which has emerged as part of wider considerations regarding smart buildings, infrastructure, cities and regions.

The meaning of these developments, and their importance to the lives of users, requires a collaborative, inclusive and people centred approach to design, taking cognisance of problems and barriers which may be faced by people and their communities in everyday life.

In this sense, we place an emphasis on the fact that people should be regarded as assets in the design and implementation of new technologies, able to respond to and consider technology as one of the many solutions available to tackle current challenges.

This workshop will explore the role of stakeholder collaboration and participation within the design of autonomous vehicle projects. Whilst much of the technology, as it develops, is measured against volumetric KPIs, research undertaken by the workshop leaders suggests that drawing on methods from the social sciences and design thinking will prove to be fruitful and help to ensure that the technology does not become a “solution in search of a problem”.

The workshop will concentrate on the consideration and elaboration of use cases whereby autonomous vehicles might provide a unique and positive response to challenges faced by society.

Category of impact	Public discourseand understanding, Pathway to Impact, Creativity, culture and society