The main crossing in the centre of The Hague is characterised by a lack of traffic rules, with public transport, taxis and bikes passing through the crowd of pedestrians. This project took a leap forward and conceptualised how autonomous public transport, without drivers, can communicate its intentions to pedestrians.
A prototype was conceptualised and visualised by Elize de Kuijper.
In The Hague, the crossing of Spui and De Grote Marktstraat/Kalvermarkt, is busy and complex because of the many different types of transport and because there is nog marking, no signage on the road or on traffic signs. In this scarcely regulated area, people use human communication to safely find their way through the seeming chaos, with any apparent problems. But what if soon autonomous vehicles will appear? Buses and taxis without driver? How will we communicate with them, if there’s no driver to look into the eyes?
In this project we analysed, through field research, the human behaviour and interactions in the crossing, in order to explore the solutions for interactions with non-human road users.