A new survey based concept:  In-vehicle lighting for future users identified

A new survey based concept: In-vehicle lighting for future users identifiedChristopher Weirich1, Yandan Lin1* and Tran Quoc Khanh2 1Department of Illuminating Engineering & Light Sources, Fudan University, Shanghai, China 2Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany *Contact email address: ydlin@fudan.edu.cn We observed a higher attention rate for automotive interior lighting systems in several new released vehicles over the last years. Latest, with the introduction of the new high-level carlines in 2021, it was obvious that there was in general a greater point of interest for vehicle interior illumination compared to the past. For that, we want to start from the beginning to try to answer basic questions for such an in-vehicle illumination system. By doing so, we identified light-color preferences, its in-vehicle positions, emotions of passengers and meanings for such an illumination system, as our four-start points motivated by an extended study about the future vehicle target group, passenger context and vehicle-passenger interactions. To investigate these elements, we conducted a scientific online survey. The attendance was in an anonymous way with a global free access concept. Based on pre-defined answeroptions or Likert-like scales participants were able to answer the questions in a guided way. To further motivate people to fill out the questionnaire, a high dynamic and interactive layout was chosen including animations. To increase the answering-efficiency of the questionnaire, the layout was primary optimized to answer it directly on a personal smartphone distributed by social media platforms like WeChat, Facebook or WhatsApp. First results out of this study show that there are different expectations for a future in-vehicle lighting system between genders. Men are primary focusing on technology, whereas women paid more attention on driving safety. This tentative finding concludes the need for a higher lighting-passenger adaptation in the future grounded by deeper in-vehicle human factors research. in-vehicle lighting base; light preferences, mood and meaning; light use case study; in-vehicle human factors