Inclusive approach to transport safety: How one agency was able to make an impact on the safety of autonomous vehicles

Q&A with 2024 Groundbreaking Research Project award finalist Lacuna Agency

Editor’s note: Lacuna Agency (formerly 7th Sense Research UK) is a finalist of the 2024 Groundbreaking Research Project award, a category in the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards. The winners of the awards will be announced on November 19 during a virtual celebration. To find out more about the awards, visit QuirksAwards.com. 

Lacuna Agency (formerly 7th Sense Research UK), is one of the finalists in the 2024 Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards in the Groundbreaking Research Project category.  

This project combined in-person and virtual reality (VR) focus groups to explore the safety needs of passengers with “protected characteristics” during emergencies in self-driving taxis. The participants experienced realistic emergency situations through the VR as researchers observed their instinctual reactions.

The findings will be used by the Department for Transport to develop customized safety protocols for self-driving taxis.

“Our mission is to champion an inclusive approach to transport safety,” explained a Project Lead, Clare Mutzenich, Ph.D. “We strive to ensure that future research and design considers everyone’s needs from the outset, to create self-driving vehicles that are truly safe, accessible and user-friendly for every passenger.” 

Learn more about the project that earned the agency a finalist spot in the 2024 Groundbreaking Research category of the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards from Mutzenich and the entire team at Lacuna Agency.  

Describe the nominated project

Our project focused on understanding the needs of passengers with “protected characteristics” during emergencies in a self-driving taxi. Using cutting-edge VR simulations, participants experienced scenarios like floods and fires, giving us real-time insights into their instinctive responses and unique needs. This was the first study of its kind to combine simulated and physical presence in VR to explore safety and accessibility in an automated vehicle context.

We designed high-fidelity VR scenarios to allow participants to engage directly in various emergency situations. For example, a passenger with mobility impairments might struggle to retrieve a wheelchair during a fire, while a child might require simple emergency instructions during a flood. Participants entered the virtual car together, interacting with these scenarios in real time, allowing us to track their reactions and monitor decision-making processes. 

This immersive approach highlighted the different reactions and needs of individuals based on their protected characteristics, such as age, disability and sensory impairments. We partnered closely with stakeholders and tailored discussion guides to meet the diverse needs of our participant groups, including carers who joined focus groups to provide additional context and support.

Our findings are being used by the Department for Transport to inform the development of emergency protocols for self-driving taxis, making them safer and more accessible for all users. We hope this research will pave the way for inclusive, equitable transportation in the future. 

What was the most challenging aspect of this project?

One of the biggest challenges we faced was ensuring that our study was inclusive and accessible to all participants, particularly those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Without diverse representation, we risked overlooking important insights on how people’s needs, abilities and cultural backgrounds might impact their safety in autonomous vehicles.

To overcome this, we collaborated extensively with stakeholders, advocacy groups and transport charities to ensure our research design and discussion guides were tailored to each group’s unique needs. This included simplifying language for participants with cognitive impairments, adjusting scenarios for neurodiverse individuals and making physical accommodations for those with limited mobility.

We also took steps to create an inclusive environment from the start. For example, we created a personalized invitation video for participants, introducing the research team and offering a virtual tour of the testing facility. We followed up with phone calls to ask participants how we could make the experience more comfortable for them, whether that meant adjusting the lighting, limiting the number of people in the room or offering quiet spaces for breaks. 

By building flexibility into our study design, scheduling sessions throughout the day and on weekends and conducting follow-up interviews to gain feedback on the experience and what improvements we could make, we were able to accommodate the needs of a wide variety of participants and ensure our insights reflected the true diversity of potential self-driving taxi users.

Would you change anything about the project?

While the project met its objectives, there are areas we would consider refining, particularly as automated passenger vehicles become part of everyday life.  

One key adjustment would be expanding the geographical diversity of participants. By conducting research in a wider range of locations – urban, suburban and rural – we could better capture how environment and lifestyle influence people’s responses and needs in emergency situations within autonomous vehicles.

As these vehicles become more common, we would also consider conducting ethnographic studies in participants’ own vehicles or regular modes of transport. By going to them, rather than relying on them to come to us, we could observe their specific needs and current challenges in real-world contexts. This approach would offer a richer understanding of how different groups, with their unique backgrounds and circumstances, would experience emergencies in autonomous vehicles, allowing us to develop more nuanced, practical safety solutions.