“Shotitwo First!”: Unraveling Global South Women’s Challenges in Public Transport to Inform Autonomous Vehicle Design

We call attention to the challenges associated with Global South women’s safety in public transportation and investigate the potential of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in providing them with greater mobility and broader opportunities. In a mixed-methods study with Bangladeshi women (n=23), we explored their safety issues, including sexual harassment and assault, to inform AV design, especially for shared rides. Our focus group fndings revealed women’s distressing experiences of abuse and undertaken safety measures in public transport of Global South. We conducted co-design sessions utilizing virtual reality (VR) scenarios and investigated participants’ perceptions of potential AV designs addressing unique safety concerns and transportation challenges. Participants suggested prioritizing their own safety, achieved through design justice of equitable AV, over the current, often inefective, retributive justice. Our work contributes to AV design, ICTD, and feminist HCI by suggesting implications for designing community-based and culturally contextual transportation infrastructure for Bangladeshi women and similar other communities.