Shuttle Project: Human-Centred Interaction with Automated Shuttles
Project Partners
Funding
Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) / European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)
Duration at the Chair of Cognitive Psychology and Human Factors
January 2026 to December 2027
Description
In the future, automated vehicles will increasingly interact with vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, in public spaces. For a safe and accepted introduction of these forms of mobility, technical performance alone is not decisive. It is equally important to understand how people perceive and interpret the behaviour of automated vehicles. For example, the vehicle mode or braking strategy may influence whether an interaction is perceived as safe, comprehensible, and trustworthy.
As part of the project, Chemnitz University of Technology and Technische Universität Berlin investigate the human-centred and ethical design of interactions between pedestrians and an automated shuttle. First, different vehicle modes (automated, manually driven, and teleoperated), different approach speeds, and alternative braking strategies are experimentally compared in realistic field studies. The aim is to derive design recommendations for vehicle behaviour that is intuitive and positively perceived by pedestrians, thereby contributing to the development of automated mobility that consistently takes users’ needs into account.
Subsequently, the interaction scenarios and experiments used in the field studies will be transferred to a pedestrian-in-the-loop simulator as well as to video-based laboratory and online studies. By systematically investigating comparable scenarios using different research methods, the project will examine how the respective method influences the perception, behavioural intentions, and evaluation of interactions between pedestrians and automated vehicles. The findings will contribute to the human-centred development of automated mobility.
News
Project Presentation at the CVAG Conference
The project will be presented to a professional audience on October 6, 2026, as part of the CVAG conference “MOBILITÄTSIMPULS – Autonomes Fahren im ÖPNV” at the Garagen-Campus in Chemnitz. As part of the technology demonstration, participants will have the opportunity to experience the automated shuttle on site.
In the evening, the project will also be presented to the general public. Visitors will have the opportunity to take a seat in the automated shuttle, learn more about the project and its findings, and gain insights into research on the human-centred design of interactions between pedestrians and automated vehicles.
