You’ll Never Ride Alone: Insights into Women’s Security Needs in Shared Automated Vehicles

Shared automated vehicles (SAV) are expected to benefit society and the environment as vehicles and rides are shared among passengers. However, this requires acceptance by different types of people. Recent research confirms that women and older people are particularly concerned about this mobility form due to security reasons. These concerns must be considered to assure the adoption of SAVs from women and senior citizens, too. Accordingly, we conducted a qualitative user study (N=21) using participatory design methods. Our work contributes insights into women’s security needs by taking a holistic view of a ride with an SAV from booking to arrival from the perspective of women of different age groups. From our results, we derived general design implications and propose three concrete concepts for high levels of security. Lastly, we present a research agenda for further investigation on security concepts in SAVs.