The automated family vehicle of the future TU Braunschweig is looking for people aged 65 and over and parents for online surveys

As a car owner, you are often a chauffeur these days: you take the kids to school, to sports, to friends. You drive grandma to the shops, grandpa to his bowling club, the two of them to the coffee party in the local church. Sometimes you’re more of a chauffeur than you are on your way to your own destinations. This may change in the future. Automated vehicles will be able to make such journeys independently.

Model representation of the automated family vehicle autoELFE, which is being developed in the UNICARagil project. Tobias Schräder / TU Braunschweig

TU Braunschweig is currently developing such a vehicle, the “autoELFE”. In addition to the technical challenges, it is important to consider exactly the possible uses for which there is a real need. What should such a vehicle look like inside? What do people want to do while driving? Children might want to watch YouTube, but what do senior citizens want? What does the interior have to be like to make you feel truly comfortable? And what do you have to consider when getting in and out of the car? How do you tell the car where to go?

Researchers from the Chair of Engineering and Traffic Psychology and the Department of Vehichle Electronics would like to investigate these and other questions with the help of two online surveys:

• One survey examines the view of older people aged 65 and over who can no longer, no longer want to or are no longer allowed to drive themselves.
• The second survey takes into account the view of parents and guardians with underage children in their own household.

It takes about 30 minutes to participate in each survey. The surveys can be carried out with any internet-enabled device (PC, tablet, smartphone).

The two online surveys are part of the “UNICARagil” project (funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), in which the Institute for Control Engineering at TU Braunschweig is involved.

Data protection

Participation in this survey is anonymous. This means that none of the information in the questionnaire can be traced back to a specific person. Participation is voluntary and the answering of the questionnaire can be cancelled at any time without disadvantages. In this case, none of the data will be used.

Presentation of the results

After completion of the surveys, the survey results will be presented at a concluding event with a presentation on the premises of TU Braunschweig. Interested participants can leave their email address in the survey and will be invited to the final event.