TY - JOUR
T1 - Transporting Children in Autonomous Vehicles
T2 - An Exploratory Study
AU - Tremoulet, Patrice D.
AU - Seacrist, Thomas
AU - Ward McIntosh, Chelsea
AU - Loeb, Helen
AU - DiPietro, Anna
AU - Tushak, Sophia
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), grant number 1539938, for sponsoring this study, and its Industry Advisory Board (IAB) members for their support, valuable input, and advice. In addition, this material includes work that was supported under NSF Grant Number EEC-1460927. The views presented are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of CHOP, the NSF, or the IAB members. The authors would also like to thank their two student research assistants, Michelle Shen and Saniyah Shaikh. Patrice D. Tremoulet is also affiliated with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA and ECRI Institute, Plymouth Meeting, PA, USA, and Sophia Tushak is also affiliated with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - Objective: Identify factors that impact parents’ decisions about allowing an unaccompanied child to ride in an autonomous vehicle (AV). Background: AVs are being tested in several U.S. cities and on highways in multiple states. Meanwhile, suburban parents are using ridesharing services to shuttle children from school to extracurricular activities. Parents may soon be able to hire AVs to transport children. Method: Nineteen parents of 8- to 16-year-old children, and some of their children, rode in a driving simulator in autonomous mode, then were interviewed. Parents also participated in focus groups. Topics included minimum age for solo child passengers, types of trips unaccompanied children might take, and vehicle features needed to support child passengers. Results: Parents would require two-way audio communication and prefer video feeds of vehicle interiors, seatbelt checks, automatic locking, secure passenger identification, and remote access to vehicle information. Parents cited convenience as the greatest benefit and fear that AVs could not protect passengers during unplanned trip interruptions as their greatest concern. Conclusion: Manufacturers have an opportunity to design family-friendly AVs from the outset, rather than retrofit them to be safe for child passengers. More research, especially usability studies where families interact with technology prototypes, is needed to understand how AV design impacts child passengers. Application: Potential applications of this research include not only designing vehicles that can be used to safely transport children, seniors who no longer drive, and individuals with disabilities but also developing regulations, policies, and societal infrastructure to support safe child transport via AVs.
AB - Objective: Identify factors that impact parents’ decisions about allowing an unaccompanied child to ride in an autonomous vehicle (AV). Background: AVs are being tested in several U.S. cities and on highways in multiple states. Meanwhile, suburban parents are using ridesharing services to shuttle children from school to extracurricular activities. Parents may soon be able to hire AVs to transport children. Method: Nineteen parents of 8- to 16-year-old children, and some of their children, rode in a driving simulator in autonomous mode, then were interviewed. Parents also participated in focus groups. Topics included minimum age for solo child passengers, types of trips unaccompanied children might take, and vehicle features needed to support child passengers. Results: Parents would require two-way audio communication and prefer video feeds of vehicle interiors, seatbelt checks, automatic locking, secure passenger identification, and remote access to vehicle information. Parents cited convenience as the greatest benefit and fear that AVs could not protect passengers during unplanned trip interruptions as their greatest concern. Conclusion: Manufacturers have an opportunity to design family-friendly AVs from the outset, rather than retrofit them to be safe for child passengers. More research, especially usability studies where families interact with technology prototypes, is needed to understand how AV design impacts child passengers. Application: Potential applications of this research include not only designing vehicles that can be used to safely transport children, seniors who no longer drive, and individuals with disabilities but also developing regulations, policies, and societal infrastructure to support safe child transport via AVs.
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U2 - 10.1177/0018720819853993
DO - 10.1177/0018720819853993
M3 - Article
C2 - 31268359
AN - SCOPUS:85068617706
VL - 62
SP - 278
EP - 287
JO - Human Factors
JF - Human Factors
SN - 0018-7208
IS - 2
ER -