Driverless Futures: The Rise Of Autonomous Vehicles
From flying carpets to science fiction movies, autonomous vehicles have gripped our imagination and featured in folktales and films across the world. They signal the greatest change to mobility since the invention of the internal combustion engine. So how can design help to increase the acceptance and adoption of driverless vehicles?
People see the rise of the driverless vehicle in a variety of ways including the excitement of new possibilities, fears over lack of control, eagerness to experience it first-hand and outright scepticism. GATEway is an £8m research project, funded by the UK Government, which aims to understand and overcome the technical, legal and societal challenges of implementing automated vehicles in an urban environment. The Royal College of Art leads the public engagement work package, holding co-creation workshops with people of all ages and abilities. Novel, inspirational ideas will be shown, that rethink two areas:
1) How we engage people in the process of designing new forms of mobility
2) The possibilities that driverless vehicles can open up for business, society and government