TIC - Trust in Intelligent Cars

Purpose and goal

The objective of this project was to combine naturalistic and experimental car studies with an ethnographic approach to investigate user experience of automated driving on public roads, and to study how the increased intelligence in and around the automated car affects trust in the automated car. Several studies have been conducted within the project, using various as well as combined research approaches. The main focus has lied in what makes people trust the car and how they experience and behave during automated driving on real roads. The project has brought fruitful results.

Expected results and effects

The literature, as well as the research conducted within this project point towards that trust is continuously ongoing and that it develops and changes over time. Trust is affected also by experiences with technology in everyday life situations. Furthermore, by using both quantitative and qualitative research methods it was revealed that people’s behaviour and experience of automated driving change over time, as they get more accustomed to the automated car. The insights can be used to improve the human-machine interaction as well as car behaviour and services in and around the car.

Planned approach and implementation

This project brought to light that ethnography investigates aspects of trust and experience that are not revealed by most experimental approaches. The project also showed that both qualitative and quantitative methods add to the understanding of people’s behaviour and experience of automated driving. It was explored how to feed in research findings to an agile product development. Is emphasized that cooperation (how), format (what) and entry points (when) are three essential aspects for improving the uptake of research findings in agile development.