Beyond Autonomy: Designing Vehicles for Everyone

Author: Denis Avetisyan

A new scoring system prioritizes the lived experiences of people with disabilities to shape the future of automated vehicle accessibility.

This review proposes the Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS), a collaborative rubric for evaluating and improving the inclusivity of self-driving car design and regulatory compliance.

Despite the transformative potential of automated vehicles, accessibility for Persons with Disabilities remains a frequently overlooked design consideration, often relegated to secondary accommodations. This paper, ‘Driving Accessibility: Shifting the Narrative & Design of Automated Vehicle Systems for Persons With Disabilities Through a Collaborative Scoring System’, addresses this gap by introducing the Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS), a novel rubric designed to proactively evaluate inclusivity based on direct user feedback. VARS fosters collaborative design and moves beyond reactive accessibility measures, offering a standardized method for assessing and improving automated vehicle design. Will this approach catalyze a paradigm shift towards truly universal accessibility in the future of transportation?

The Promise of Independent Mobility

Automated vehicles represent a potentially groundbreaking shift in mobility for persons with disabilities, offering the promise of unprecedented independence and access. For individuals who are unable to drive due to physical, sensory, or cognitive limitations, self-driving technology could unlock opportunities previously out of reach – from employment and education to social activities and essential services. This isn’t simply about replicating existing transportation options; it’s about creating entirely new possibilities, allowing individuals to travel safely and reliably without reliance on caregivers, public transportation schedules, or the availability of accessible vehicles. The technology envisions a future where spontaneous trips become feasible, geographic limitations diminish, and the ability to participate fully in community life is greatly enhanced, fostering a greater sense of autonomy and well-being.

The true benefit of automated vehicles for diverse users hinges not simply on meeting baseline accessibility standards, but on anticipating the nuanced needs of all potential riders. Current regulations often focus on minimum requirements – things like wheelchair access – but fall short of addressing usability for individuals with visual or auditory impairments, cognitive differences, or those requiring specialized medical equipment. Proactive accessibility necessitates a shift toward universal design principles, incorporating features like customizable interfaces, multimodal feedback systems, and adaptable vehicle configurations. This means engaging directly with disability communities throughout the design and testing phases, moving beyond compliance to create genuinely inclusive mobility solutions that empower, rather than inadvertently exclude, those who stand to gain the most from this emerging technology.

The advent of automated vehicles (AVs) presents a critical juncture for transportation equity. While often framed as universally beneficial, AV technology carries the inherent risk of widening existing disparities if inclusivity isn’t intentionally prioritized. Historically marginalized communities and individuals already facing transportation barriers – due to factors like socioeconomic status, geographic location, or disability – could find themselves further disadvantaged by AV deployment. Without deliberate design considerations addressing affordability, accessibility, and reliable service in underserved areas, AVs may primarily benefit those already well-connected, effectively creating a two-tiered system. This isn’t simply a matter of avoiding harm; it demands proactive steps to ensure AV technology actively dismantles existing barriers and extends genuine mobility opportunities to all, particularly those who stand to gain the most from this transformative technology.

Barriers to Access: Beyond Simple Compliance

Accessibility limitations in autonomous vehicle (AV) integration stem from both vehicle-specific design flaws and broader systemic issues. Direct barriers include physical limitations within the AV itself – such as step height, seating configurations lacking transfer options, or inaccessible in-vehicle controls – which directly impede entry, egress, and operation for individuals with mobility impairments. Indirect barriers encompass deficiencies in surrounding infrastructure, including a lack of accessible curb cuts, inadequate accessible parking, and the limited availability of accessible public transportation options to reach AV deployment areas, effectively restricting access even if the vehicle itself is technically accessible. These indirect barriers often disproportionately affect individuals with disabilities in both urban and rural environments.

Usability in autonomous vehicle (AV) design extends beyond basic operability to encompass ease of navigation and understanding for all users, including those with visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments. This requires features such as customizable interfaces – adjustable font sizes, color contrasts, and simplified control schemes – alongside multimodal feedback mechanisms, including auditory cues and haptic responses. Effective usability also necessitates clear and consistent labeling of functions, predictable system behavior, and error prevention strategies. Consideration must be given to varying levels of digital literacy and technological familiarity among users, demanding intuitive designs that minimize the cognitive load required to interact with AV features and settings.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) establish legal obligations regarding equitable access to transportation, but their application to autonomous vehicle (AV) technology requires proactive interpretation and implementation. While the ADA primarily addresses existing public transportation systems, and the CRPD outlines broad principles of inclusion, neither comprehensively covers the unique challenges and opportunities presented by AVs. Specifically, considerations must be given to accessibility of AV interfaces, equitable deployment of AV services across diverse communities, and the establishment of clear guidelines regarding AV operation in relation to individuals with disabilities – areas not explicitly addressed in existing legislation. Active engagement from policymakers, AV developers, and disability advocacy groups is necessary to ensure these frameworks remain relevant and effective as AV technology advances.

Measuring Inclusivity: A New Rating System

The Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) represents a departure from traditional automotive evaluation methods by centering the experiences of Persons with Disabilities. Rather than relying on expert opinion or generalized usability testing, VARS directly incorporates feedback from individuals with a range of impairments regarding their interaction with autonomous vehicle features. This user-centric approach prioritizes the identification of specific accessibility barriers and the quantification of improvements based on lived experience, offering a nuanced assessment of how well an AV accommodates diverse functional needs. The system is designed to move beyond simple compliance checks and provide actionable data for developers and manufacturers seeking to enhance inclusivity in their vehicles.

The Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) builds upon established customer loyalty metrics, specifically adapting the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology to focus on accessibility. While NPS generally gauges overall customer satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, VARS modifies the core question to assess the ease with which Persons with Disabilities can utilize vehicle features. This involves tailoring survey questions to target accessibility-specific aspects of the user experience, such as ease of entry/exit, usability of in-vehicle controls, and the effectiveness of assistive technologies. The resulting score, while retaining a similar numerical scale to NPS, provides a dedicated metric for evaluating and improving vehicle inclusivity, allowing manufacturers to track progress and identify areas for targeted improvement based on direct user feedback.

The Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) incorporates the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) to move beyond broad disability categories and enable a granular understanding of individual accessibility requirements. The ICF provides a standardized framework for describing health conditions and related functional limitations, allowing VARS to categorize users based on specific impairments – ranging from mild to severe – and their impact on interacting with autonomous vehicle features. This nuanced assessment facilitates the identification of precisely which features pose challenges for specific impairment levels, rather than treating all users with a given disability identically. Consequently, VARS data can pinpoint targeted improvements to address the unique needs of diverse user groups, ensuring a more inclusive design and user experience.

The Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) employs a scoring metric ranging from -10 to 10 to quantify the accessibility of automated vehicles. Positive values indicate that a particular feature or experience improves accessibility for users with disabilities, while negative values identify potential barriers. To ensure statistical significance and reliability, the VARS methodology requires a minimum of 20 survey responses for each assessed feature before a score is calculated. This threshold helps mitigate the impact of individual outliers and provides a more robust representation of the user experience across a diverse population of individuals with disabilities.

The Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) employs differentiated baseline scores to acknowledge varying levels of functional impairment. Specifically, survey respondents self-identifying with mild-to-moderate impairments begin with a score of -1, while those with severe impairments start at 1. This approach prevents the averaging of accessibility feedback across drastically different user needs and ensures that improvements are measured relative to a baseline appropriate for each impairment group. This methodology allows for a more granular and accurate assessment of how effectively autonomous vehicle features address the specific challenges faced by individuals with diverse functional limitations.

The Ripple Effect: Accessibility as Universal Design

The concept of the Curb-Cut Effect illustrates a powerful truth about inclusive design: solutions created for individuals with disabilities frequently yield benefits for the broader population. Originally referencing how curb cuts – initially implemented to aid wheelchair users – also proved invaluable for parents with strollers, cyclists, and delivery personnel, the principle extends far beyond physical infrastructure. This phenomenon highlights that addressing the needs of a diverse user base fosters innovation and improves usability for everyone. By focusing on removing barriers for those with limitations, designers often uncover elegant solutions that enhance convenience and efficiency for all, demonstrating that accessibility isn’t a niche consideration, but a catalyst for universally better design.

Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS) represents a shift in autonomous vehicle (AV) development, encouraging designers to move beyond simply accommodating users with disabilities and instead prioritize inherent usability for all drivers and passengers. This proactive framework fosters innovation by demanding that AV interfaces and functionalities be evaluated through the lens of diverse needs – from those with physical limitations to individuals experiencing temporary impairments or simply seeking a more intuitive experience. By systematically assessing aspects like ease of entry, adjustability of controls, and clarity of information displays, VARS compels engineers to develop solutions that aren’t merely adaptive, but fundamentally better designed. The result is a vehicle experience that anticipates user needs, minimizes cognitive load, and ultimately enhances safety and convenience for everyone, proving that inclusive design isn’t a constraint, but a catalyst for progress.

While adaptive equipment – specialized tools or modifications added to vehicles – plays a crucial role in enabling mobility for drivers with specific needs, it represents just one piece of a more comprehensive approach to automotive design. A truly inclusive strategy prioritizes inherent accessibility, meaning features are integrated from the outset to benefit all users, regardless of ability. This shifts the focus from retrofitting vehicles to proactively designing interfaces and controls that are intuitive and usable by the widest possible range of people. By embedding accessibility into the core design process, manufacturers can move beyond simply accommodating disability and instead create vehicles that are more user-friendly, safer, and ultimately, more innovative for everyone. This foundational approach minimizes the reliance on costly and sometimes cumbersome add-ons, fostering a more seamless and dignified driving experience for all.

Towards a Future of Equitable Mobility

A thoughtfully designed regulatory framework is pivotal to realizing the promise of automated vehicles (AVs) for all members of society. Without clear guidelines and incentives, developers may prioritize mainstream markets, potentially overlooking the specific needs of Persons with Disabilities and other marginalized groups. Proactive regulation can encourage the integration of accessibility features – such as customizable interfaces, reliable multimodal communication, and safe boarding/alighting solutions – from the earliest stages of AV design and testing. This isn’t simply about compliance; it’s about fostering innovation that expands mobility options and promotes equitable access to employment, healthcare, and social engagement. By establishing clear performance standards, offering financial incentives for accessible designs, and streamlining the approval process for assistive technologies integrated into AVs, policymakers can ensure that this transformative technology truly benefits everyone, rather than exacerbating existing inequalities.

The successful integration of automated vehicles (AVs) for all members of society hinges on a sustained commitment to research and development, crucially guided by the lived experiences of Persons with Disabilities. Current accessibility standards, while a foundation, must evolve to address the nuanced and emerging challenges presented by this technology; for example, intuitive human-machine interfaces for those with visual or cognitive impairments, reliable external communication systems for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, and secure, adaptable wheelchair accommodations. Ongoing studies incorporating direct feedback from diverse user groups are vital not only for refining existing features but also for proactively identifying unforeseen barriers and ensuring that AVs truly empower independent mobility. This iterative process, prioritizing usability testing and co-design with the disability community, will be instrumental in transforming AVs from a technological advancement into a universally accessible reality.

The true potential of automated vehicles extends far beyond convenience; it lies in their capacity to dismantle longstanding barriers to independence and social inclusion. When inclusivity guides the design process, these vehicles become more than just transportation-they become tools for empowerment. This approach necessitates actively soliciting and integrating feedback from Persons with Disabilities throughout the entire lifecycle of development, ensuring features cater to diverse needs and preferences. By prioritizing accessible interfaces, customizable settings, and thoughtful design considerations, automated vehicles can unlock opportunities for education, employment, healthcare, and social engagement previously inaccessible to many. Ultimately, a commitment to inclusive design isn’t merely about adapting technology; it’s about building a future where everyone can participate fully and equitably in all aspects of society.

The pursuit of accessible automated vehicle systems, as detailed in this proposal for the Vehicle Accessibility Rating System (VARS), demands a ruthless prioritization of function over superfluous complexity. Alan Turing observed, “It is only when we truly understand something that we can simplify it.” This sentiment echoes the core principle underpinning VARS – a scoring system built upon direct user feedback from Persons with Disabilities. By focusing on the essential needs articulated by those who will directly utilize these vehicles, the system eschews abstract ideals in favor of tangible, measurable improvements to inclusivity. The value isn’t in adding features, but in refining those already present to ensure genuine accessibility, a concept aligned with Turing’s emphasis on elegant reduction.

The Road Ahead

The proposition of a Vehicle Accessibility Rating System, while logical in its intent, merely clarifies the depth of the existing problem. Current assessment protocols, and the regulations they underpin, presume a universality of experience that does not exist. This work highlights not a failure of engineering, but a failure of imagination. If a system requires a scoring rubric to demonstrate inclusivity, it was never truly inclusive to begin with. The true measure will not be the number of points assigned, but the eventual irrelevance of the system itself.

Future effort should not focus on refining the VARS, but on dismantling the need for any rating system. The field must confront the uncomfortable truth that accessibility is not a feature to be added, but a fundamental prerequisite. The complexity of accommodating diverse needs is not a burden, but a sign of a truly well-designed system. Any perceived complication is, invariably, a result of starting from a position of exclusionary design.

The ultimate benchmark will be silence – the absence of articles proclaiming breakthroughs in accessibility, because it will have become intrinsically woven into the fabric of automated vehicle design. To continue quantifying inclusivity is to admit its ongoing absence. The goal, then, is not to build a better scoring system, but to render the very concept obsolete.

Original article: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.02651.pdf

Contact the author: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avetisyan/