Love in traffic: Physical and digital design against consensual sexual activity inside public and shared automated vehicles

Rouchitsas, A., Alvarez, I., Kim, S., Peng, C., Bazilinskyy, P.

Adjunct Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutoUI). Gothenburg, Sweden (2026)

ABSTRACT Research on sexual behavior and transport has either focused on fear of sexual harassment and perceived safety inside public transport or on consensual sexual activity inside private transport framed as distracted driving. Meanwhile, evidence from adult content platforms suggests that consensual sexual activity inside public transport is trending. This is particularly concerning in relation to public and shared automated vehicles (AVs), where enclosure, shared use, and the absence of an authority figure can warp perceptions of accountability and intervention potential, with important consequences for passenger comfort and perceived safety and for public acceptance of the technology. Our workshop aims to address this concern by approaching consensual sexual activity as a design stress test for how AVs are perceived and used as collective spaces. We aim to synthesize design principles, identify open research questions, and establish a research agenda for designing public and shared AVs as comfortable and respectful collective spaces. conferenceworkshopautomated-drivingpassengerihmidesign