Co-designing community support systems for autonomous vehicles in rural and remote Australia

Overview

https://research.qut.edu.au/designlab/https://research.qut.edu.au/designlab/

Automated Vehicles (AVs) hold promise for addressing transport challenges in regional and remote Australia, including workforce shortages, road safety, and supply chain disruptions. However, community acceptance and social licence remain critical hurdles to widespread deployment. Past experiences with new technologies in rural settings have shown that top-down approaches often fail to account for local values, concerns, and lived realities. This project recognises that the successful integration of AVs into public life requires trust, transparency, and tangible community benefit. Working within the ARC Training Centre for Automated Vehicles in Rural and Remote Regions (AVR3), this PhD will investigate how perceptions of AV technologies are shaped by community experience, and how co-design methods can be used to create more supportive and accepted systems for AV deployment.

Research activities

As part of this PhD project, the student will:

• conduct qualitative fieldwork with rural and regional communities affected by or targeted for AV deployment
• collaborate with local councils, agricultural operators, and community groups to understand context-specific values and concerns
• use participatory and co-design methods (e.g. community workshops, design probes, speculative scenarios) to co-develop support systems and governance strategies for AV adoption
• identify barriers to social acceptance, including concerns around safety, privacy, surveillance, wildlife conservation, animal (livestock) welfare, data governance, and noise
• produce actionable design and policy recommendations for industry and government partners of the AVR3 Centre.

Outcomes

The project aims to deliver:

• a nuanced understanding of community perceptions of AVs in rural and regional Australia
• a suite of co-designed support strategies that address community needs and concerns
• a framework for ethical AV deployment that foregrounds trust, transparency, and community benefit
• practical contributions to AV policy, planning, and design—ensuring communities are not just consulted, but empowered as active partners
• academic outputs in the fields of HCI, planning, mobility studies and responsible innovation.

Skills and experience

Ideal candidates will have:

• a background in design, human-computer interaction (HCI), planning, sociology, anthropology, rural studies, or a related field
• experience with qualitative research methods, participatory design, or community engagement
• strong communication skills and the ability to work with diverse stakeholders, including rural communities and industry partners
• an interest in emerging technologies, mobility justice, and co-creation approaches
• a willingness to travel to and work within regional or remote locations as part of fieldwork and workshops.

Scholarships

You may be eligible to apply for a research scholarship.

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Keywords

• Autonomous vehicles
• Community engagement
• Social licence
• Co-design
• Participatory design
• Rural mobility
• Trust in technology
• Ethical technology adoption
• Mobility justice
• Human-computer interaction

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.