About the project
How can autonomous vehicles earn and maintain people’s trust? This PhD explores the security, privacy, and human factors challenges of AI-enabled transport, focusing on interactions between drivers, pedestrians, and autonomous vehicles. Using innovative simulation and user-centred design methods, you will help shape safer, more trustworthy, and socially acceptable mobility.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are rapidly becoming part of everyday transport, yet critical challenges remain in ensuring that they are secure, privacy-preserving, and trusted by the people who use and interact with them. This PhD project will investigate how drivers, passengers, and pedestrians perceive, interpret, and respond to the behaviour of AI-enabled vehicles, particularly when vehicle decisions are unexpected, ambiguous, privacy-sensitive, or influenced by cyber threats. The project builds on emerging research that views humans as active partners in the safe operation of autonomous systems rather than passive users.
The research will explore topics such as human understanding of vehicle decision-making, privacy and data-sharing concerns in intelligent transport systems, communication between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians, trust and situational awareness, and responses to safety-critical events including cyberattacks.
You will design and evaluate novel interfaces, decision-support tools, and interaction mechanisms that help people better understand, trust, and safely engage with autonomous vehicles.
The project combines methods from cybersecurity, privacy, human-computer interaction, AI, and transportation research, but it is not required for candidates to have knowledge across all the fields.
Standout features include access to state-of-the-art driving simulation facilities, opportunities to collaborate with researchers in transportation and intelligent systems, and training in user-centred design, experimental methods, and AI-enabled technologies. The outcomes will contribute to the development of safer, more trustworthy, and socially acceptable autonomous transportation systems.
The supervisor will provide training in cybersecurity, privacy, and human-computer interactions. There will also be opportunities to collaborate with researchers in transportation and intelligent systems to deepen understanding of the socio-technical challenges facing today's AI-driven transportation systems.
The School of Electronics and Computer Science is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
