Rethinking Vulnerability: Perception, Behaviour, and Power Differentials in Mixed Road-User Interactions

Classifying road users based on their characteristics allows researchers and policy makers to make general distinctions between different types of road users who may have different needs. The classification vulnerable road user (VRU) is frequently used to describe road users who are not protected by the frame of a vehicle and considered to be high-risk (e.g., motorcyclist, cyclist, pedestrian). However, there is a body of research challenging this classification, highlighting the emphasis it places on road users as 'vulnerable' rather than the vulnerabilities caused by external factors, such as infrastructure design and the behaviour of other road-users. Although this critique is not new, the issues identified in this critical literature are not coherently addressed in empirical work involving these road users that uses the VRU construct and forms assumptions based on it.

This research will explore alternative approaches to categorising road users, particularly those considered vulnerable, and using these categories to understand road-user interactions through modelling and analysis. The project comprises three phases: a theoretical phase to develop the conceptual foundations for the approach, an experimental phase to identify important road user characteristics, and a synthesis phase to consider potential implementation pathways for this research, which could potentially make a valuable original contribution to understandings of road user interactions, policy, and the application of road-user modelling techniques in autonomous systems and infrastructure design.

The first phase will examine how the VRU classification is understood across disciplines, explore VRU behaviour and power differentials on the road, and evaluate how the classification is currently operationalised in modelling and analysis. The first study will employ mixed methods and use secondary census and transport use data, route planning analysis, and photo ethnography to understand the factors that can act as 'hinge points', where VRUs change their route or mode of transport. The second study will systematically analyse existing approaches used to interpret VRU behaviours and intentions in transport modelling and predictive systems and how the factors identified in study one are incorporated. This initial work provides a foundation to understand the state of the art, identify important factors that influence VRU behaviour, and identify priorities and metrics used in modelling.

The second phase will examine the psychological processes underpinning road user behaviour. This will focus on how road users perceive the roadway, how they build mental models of what's going on, and how they understand and predict the behaviour of other road users from different classes. This work will focus on high-risk interactions, or situations where there are clear power differentials between road users, as identified in literature and through research conducted in phase one. The aim of this phase is to analyse the processes and power dynamics underlying road user behaviours in a way that can be implemented in empirical modelling methodologies. The final phase of this research will focus on identifying pathways to implement the findings to support the adoption of sustainable transport, modelling road user behaviour, and planning for mixed-use roadway to maximise research impact.

Impact Summary

This proposal has been developed from the ground up to guarantee the highest level of impact. The two principal routes towards impact are via the graduates that we train and by the embedding of the research that is undertaken into commercial activity. The impact will have a significant commercial value through addressing skills requirements and providing technical solutions for the automotive industry - a key sector for the UK economy.

The graduates that emerge from our CDT (at least 84 people) will be transformative in two distinct ways. The first is a technical route and the second is cultural.

In a technical role, their deep subject matter expertise across all of the key topics needed as the industry transitions to a more sustainable future. This expertise is made much more accessible and applicable by their broad understanding of the engineering and commercial context in which they work. They will have all of the right competencies to ensure that they can achieve a very significant contribution to technologies and processes within the sector from the start of their careers, an impact that will grow over time. Importantly, this CDT is producing graduates in a highly skilled sector of the economy, leading to jobs that are £50,000 more productive per employee than average (i.e. more GVA). These graduates are in demand, as there are a lack of highly skilled engineers to undertake specialist automotive propulsion research and fill the estimated 5,000 job vacancies in the UK due to these skills shortages. Ultimately, the CDT will create a highly specialised and productive talent pipeline for the UK economy.

The route to impact through cultural change is perhaps of even more significance in the long term. Our cohort will be highly diverse, an outcome driven by our wide catchment in terms of academic background, giving them a 'diversity edge'. The cultural change that is enabled by this powerful cohort will have a profound impact, facilitating a move away from 'business as usual'.

The research outputs of the CDT will have impact in two important fields - the products produced and processes used within the indsutry. The academic team leading and operating this CDT have a long track record of generating impact through the application of their research outputs to industrially relevant problems. This understanding is embodied in the design of our CDT and has already begun in the definition of the training programmes and research themes that will meet the future needs of our industry and international partners. Exchange of people is the surest way to achieve lasting and deep exchange of expertise and ideas. The students will undertake placements at the collaborating companies and will lead to employment of the graduates in partner companies.

The CDT is an integral part of the IAAPS initiative. The IAAPS Business Case highlights the need to develop and train suitably skilled and qualified engineers in order to achieve, over the first five years of IAAPS' operations, an additional £70 million research and innovation expenditure, creating an additional turnover of £800 million for the automotive sector, £221 million in GVA and 1,900 new highly productive jobs.

The CDT is designed to deliver transformational impact for our industrial partners and the automotive sector in general. The impact is wider than this, since the products and services that our partners produce have a fundamental part to play in the way we organise our lives in a modern society. The impact on the developing world is even more profound. The rush to mobility across the developing world, the increasing spending power of a growing global middle class, the move to more urban living and the increasingly urgent threat of climate change combine to make the impact of the work we do directly relevant to more people than ever before. This CDT can help change the world by effecting the change that needs to happen in our industry.