Bridging Worlds: Integrating Human Factors in Agile Automated Vehicle Development

Doctoral thesis, 2024

Context: Automated Vehicle (AV) technology has grown significantly in complexity and impact, promising to transform urban transportation. However, research shows that vehicle automation can only live up to this expectation if it is designed with human capabilities and limitations in mind. Integrating human factors knowledge into AV development is, therefore, essential. Traditionally, this integration has relied on upfront requirements during pre-development. The adoption of agile methodologies, which lack such upfront processes, necessitates new approaches for integrating human factors into agile AV development. This study addresses this challenge by exploring the inte- gration of human factors knowledge within agile AV development from a requirements engineering perspective.

Objective: This thesis empirically examines how to efficiently incorporate human factors knowledge into large-scale agile AV development, identifying practical strategies to address this need.

Method: The research employs a mixed-methods approach, including interviews, workshops, document analysis, and surveys, to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. These methods provide insights into developing strategies for integrating human factors knowledge into agile AV development.

Findings: Initial findings highlight several challenges in integrating human factors knowledge, such as inadequate tools, methods, and expertise. It highlight the need for strategies to effectively capture and apply human factors requirements. Experiments emerged as a critical element, offering insights into human interactions with complex systems. Building on these findings, a follow-up study examined the feasibility of using continuous experimentation to integrate human factors knowledge into agile AV development. Continuous experimentation alone proved insufficient to fully integrate human factors knowledge into agile processes. While it supports rapid feedback and iterative improvements, it does not accommodate the specific experiments required for addressing human factors effectively.

To address these gaps, the study applied a requirements engineering perspective. The concept of Requirements Strategies emerged, providing organizations with structured guidelines for defining and implementing effective approaches to manage their specific requirements in agile development. These guidelines emphasize three main components: structural, organizational, and work and feature flow perspectives. This concept was then used as a lens to collect best practices for the integration of human factors requirements in agile AV development.

In agile development, autonomous teams make localized decisions and discover new knowledge independently, often relying on implicit expertise. Effective integration of human factors requires teams to possess or have access to such knowledge. Given the scarcity of human factors experts, strategic placement of this expertise within organizations becomes critical. The study identifies optimal placements to enhance the management of human factors requirements and their integration into agile processes.

Conclusion: This research offers strategies, informed by practitioner feedback and study findings, to integrate human factors knowledge into agile AV development. These strategies are framed across structural, organizational, and work and feature flow perspectives. Additionally, the placement of human factors expertise within organizations is suggested to manage these requirements effectively and and maximize the impact of human factors considerations on final products. The findings contribute to the ongoing discourse on how to effectively incorporate human-centric considerations into the rapidly evolving field of automated vehicle development.