User Experience of Autonomous Ferries: What Passengers Need and How to Design for It

Paper Title

User Experience of Autonomous Ferries: What Passengers Need and How to Design for It

Publication Info

• Topic area: User experience design for autonomous waterborne transport.
• Keywords: Autonomous ferries, user experience, accessibility, trust, transparency, human-machine interface, embodied motion, maritime mobility, design guidelines, public transport.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Limited understanding of user experience (UX) in autonomous ferries, particularly in real-world contexts, compared to land-based autonomous vehicles.
• Significance: Addressing UX challenges is critical for passenger trust, acceptance, and the successful integration of autonomous ferries into urban transport networks.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research has focused on technical feasibility and risk/safety aspects of autonomous vessels but has underexplored experiential factors. Existing UX studies on land-based autonomous vehicles provide insights but lack applicability to waterborne contexts due to unique hydrodynamic and sensory challenges.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Thematic analysis of passenger feedback from a public trial of the autonomous ferry milliAmpere 2 to identify UX factors and propose actionable design guidelines.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical investigation of waterborne UX factors through post-ride interviews (N=164).
  2. Identification of ferry-specific themes, including embodied motion, docking transparency, accessibility challenges, and temporal expectations.
  3. Development of six design guidelines tailored to autonomous ferry services.
  4. Extension of land-based autonomous vehicle UX research to waterborne contexts.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a public trial with milliAmpere 2 over three weeks in Trondheim, Norway.
  • Semi-structured interviews with passengers immediately after disembarking.
  • Thematic analysis by three researchers to identify patterns and themes in user feedback.
  • Proposed guidelines based on findings to address sensory qualities, transparency, accessibility, and social roles in autonomous ferry design.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Passengers described the crossing as calm and quiet due to electric propulsion but noted temporal tensions during docking.
  • Hydrodynamic corrections and pauses were often misinterpreted as errors due to lack of transparency.
  • Accessibility challenges arose at the vessel-quay interface, particularly for users with mobility aids or strollers.
  • Absence of a visible operator created uncertainty during unexpected stops or delays.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Highlights ferry-specific UX factors not addressed in land-based autonomous transport studies.
  • Provides actionable design insights to improve trust, predictability, and accessibility in autonomous ferry services.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Public trial with 1,500 passengers; 164 post-ride interviews conducted.
  • Thematic analysis revealed five key themes influencing UX.
  • Findings were translated into six design guidelines for future autonomous ferry systems.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Short trial duration limits insights into long-term adoption and trust calibration.
  • Findings are specific to a single vessel, route, and cultural setting (Trondheim, Norway).
  • Future research should include longitudinal studies, diverse geographical contexts, and comparisons with conventional ferry services.

Summary

This study investigates passenger experiences with an autonomous ferry, milliAmpere 2, during a public trial in Trondheim, Norway. Through thematic analysis of post-ride interviews (N=164), it identifies waterborne-specific UX factors, such as embodied motion, docking transparency, and accessibility challenges, and proposes six design guidelines to enhance trust, predictability, and accessibility. The findings extend land-based autonomous vehicle UX research to maritime contexts, emphasizing the need for human-centred design that integrates vessel behaviour, HMI communication, and quay infrastructure. Future research should explore long-term adoption and broader applicability across diverse settings.