It’s CENEX time! So when better to introduce our latest insights report into public attitudes to self-driving technology. Through our work on pioneering initiatives, such as D-Risk and Project Endeavour, DG Cities has become a leading UK authority on public engagement in the sector. Head of Research and Service Design, Ed Houghton explains more and looks at the next challenges research needs to address and some of the perceived barriers to deployment…
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Where to next for self-driving research? And is the most difficult part still to come?
The DG Cities team has been exploring the potential of self-driving cars for several years. Our work has taken us the length and breadth of the country, where we have met different communities and explored some of the urban and rural spaces where self-driving technology could have the potential to change how people get around. Through our projects, we have also collaborated with some of the world’s leading technology developers in this exciting and complex field.
This week we’re delighted to be on the road (or train!) again, visiting the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle Event and Cenex Connected Automated Mobility Event to share our research with the public, and to highlight where we think self-driving technologies are headed next. We’ve been trialling new ways of engagement and we’re looking forward to showcasing some of our insights from this. For example, in several of our self-driving projects, we’ve been able to deploy new techniques, such as simulation and virtual reality. This has widened our reach and enabled us to share information with a larger number of people, helping them better understand what self-driving technology is, and what it might mean for their daily lives. So, what do the public really think of self-driving services, and what could the technology mean for mobility in our towns and cities in the future?
Project Endeavour: diving deeper into public acceptance and interest in adoption
Project Endeavour was established to rapidly accelerate the development of road-ready self-driving tech, and to provide insights to policymakers, researchers and local authorities about the realities of deploying self-driving services. As part of Project Endeavour, we delivered an open trial to allow the public to experience self-driving technology, and see for themselves how it works. We invited over 120 members of the public to join the live trial in Greenwich, London. Attendees met with safety drivers and self-driving vehicle engineers to learn about the technology and took a ride on roads around the local area. We were able to do deep research with these participants, interviewing them, and conducting before and after surveys to measure their attitudes and perceptions. We also ran a national survey of more than 2,000 people that explored their views on self-driving vehicles. Together, the trial and survey research showed us:
The majority are either undecided or are not yet comfortable using self-driving vehicles: findings from our national survey show 26.8% would feel confident using a self-driving vehicle tomorrow if it were possible to do so. Over half would not (55.1%). The remainder are undecided (18.1%).
The safety case for self-driving vehicles has yet to fully convince the public: findings from our national survey show that three in ten (29.9%) believe that self-driving vehicles will be safer than traditional vehicles, whilst 44.2% disagree. A quarter (25.9%) are undecided.
Live trials improved perceptions of safety by 15 percentage points: before the trial, 68.3% agreed that AVs would be safer than human driven vehicles, whilst after the trial 83.6% agreed, an improvement of 15 points.
VR: bringing the self-driving future closer to the public
A key part of our engagement work for Project Endeavour was to trial innovative and accessible methods of engagement that could enable us to reach as many participants, from as many perspectives, as possible. We trialled virtual reality (VR) as a method because it allowed us to do several things:
Bring to life a ride in a self-driving car, which we did by inviting people to sit and experience a journey around Oxford in the Project Endeavour vehicle.
Support engagement with the public through the COVID-19 pandemic, while adhering to restrictions on personal distance.
Create a sustainable tool that has had a life beyond the project to support broader engagement. Our VR trial reached over 2,500 households and schools nationwide, meaning many more were able to participate than could be accommodated in a physical trial.
Are we nearly there yet? Where research must go next
The technology that drives self-driving services is maturing quickly. Vehicles can now be trialled safely and successfully, and as Project Endeavour showed, they can travel through busy, complex cities and towns. However, to move forward, we now need to focus on adoption and acceptance by investigating the barriers, and exploring techniques and approaches that can support communities to build their confidence in and knowledge of self-driving services. We think that future research should look to cover the following important areas:
Deeper public engagement into service design: a recurring theme across our research is that of emerging understanding and public expectations of how future services may be operated using self-driving technologies.
Investment in behaviour change intervention design to tackle limited acceptance of and interest in self-driving technology: Project Endeavour highlights a significant number of ‘undecided’ participants who have yet to be convinced by self-driving technology. This group could be potentially shifted positively with the right intervention. More work is needed to understand which type of intervention would be successful in doing this.
Increased engagement with excluded and vulnerable groups: interest and engagement in public trials and survey methods is often amongst those with access to resources, and with interest in the topic. Future service models must be developed with accessibility for excluded and vulnerable groups in mind.
Support for additional research on capability and capacity building in local authorities around self-driving technologies and their potential impacts: local authorities need support to better understand the opportunities autonomous vehicles can offer, and the influence that deeper consideration of self-driving services can have on wider highways issues.
We’re excited to see where self-driving technologies go next. But one thing is clear: if the innovation is to become mainstream, it must be developed with the public at its centre. Without this, the technology could stall, which could be hugely damaging – not only for the industry, but also for all who could benefit from the potential advantages of its deployment.
