Parents’ perspectives on transporting their children in autonomous vehicles – A contextual interview study with parents in Germany

Driverless or autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to address children’s mobility disadvantage by enabling them to become more independent from their parents and other adult drivers before they reach the legal age for obtaining a driver’s license. In an online contextual interview study, we interviewed N=22 parents of underage children from Germany to investigate their willingness to use AVs for unaccompanied transportation of their children. The goal of the interview study was to investigate whether AVs are a suitable option to support unaccompanied transportation of children from the parents’ perspective and how these AVs should be designed considering the parents’ concerns and needs. In contrast to former acceptance studies, we familiarized the participants with an existing AV concept called autoELF. We created a user scenario to enable the parents to better imagine the situation. In the study, parents first described their children’s current mobility in a normal week. Parents were then asked about the expected benefits, concerns, child-related prerequisites and technical requirements for using AVs, as well as the possibilities for integrating AVs into their family’s mobility. Results showed that AVs can be a solution to provide children with unaccompanied transportation. In contrast to previous studies, the majority of parents interviewed in this study were willing to use the AV for the transportation of unaccompanied children, but only after parents had gained initial experience with the vehicle and trained their children in its use. Regarding the unaccompanied use by their children, parents based their consent to use the AV on their children’s emotional and cognitive abilities rather than on their age. In their children’s daily mobility, parents intended to replace most of the previously accompanied car journeys during leisure time with the autoELF vehicle without compromising their children’s active mobility, such as walking or bicycling. In contrast to previous literature, only a few parents cited school commuting as a use case for the autoELF vehicle. Our qualitative interview study highlights the potential of AVs for unaccompanied child transportation. Moreover, it stresses the importance to use specific, tangible concept when investigating family AVs. In the next phase of the research project, a physical prototype of the autoELF vehicle was tested with children and older adults as the primary user groups.