PhD Position in Extended Reality for Safe and Active Mobility

Do you want to help make interactions between pedestrians, cyclists, and micromobility users safer through eXtended Reality?

Job description

Cities worldwide are experiencing rapid growth in active and micromobility modes such as cycling, e-scooters, cargo bikes, and mobility aids. While these modes offer significant environmental and societal benefits, they also create new interaction challenges between road users in increasingly complex urban environments. We are seeking an ambitious and highly motivated PhD candidate to join the SAFE MOVE project, which brings together universities, industry partners, public authorities, and mobility stakeholders to improve the safety, inclusiveness, and uptake of active and micromobility modes in urban environments.

As part of the SAFE MOVE project, this PhD position will focus on employing immersive eXtended Reality (XR) and wearable sensing technologies to systematically study interaction dynamics and the relationship between objective risk, perceived safety, stress, and comfort across diverse user groups, mobility modes such as pedestrians, cyclists, micromobility users, and wheelchair users, and infrastructure contexts.

In this role, you will:

• Develop a common XR multimodal ontology framework and scalable XR simulators representing diverse urban traffic scenarios and infrastructure types while ensuring portability and transferability across XR simulator platforms.
• Conduct XR experiments to investigate behavioral, cognitive, psychological, and physiological responses of different road users and derive stress, comfort, and perceived safety indicators.
• Validate XR findings through mixed-reality and real-world experiments.
• Design and evaluate XR-based safety training programmes for active and micromobility users.
• Collaborate closely with project partners across different work packages, such as integrating XR with microscopic traffic simulation, developing explainable behavioral and safety models using behavioural data, surrogate safety measures, and AI techniques.
• Contribute to the development of the SAFE MOVE integrated UMO data platform that ingests heterogeneous data types generated in the SAFE MOVE pilots.

The PhD project is conducted at the Department of Transport and Planning (T&P) of Delft University of Technology. T&P aims at top-level fundamental research that contributes to a more efficient and robust design and reliable operation of transport systems. You will be a member of the Mobility in eXtended Reality Lab (MXR Lab) as well as the Urban Mobility Observatory (UMO) lab.

The MXR Lab conducts research on mobility behaviour by using controlled virtual environments to study how pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, and mobility service users navigate spaces, respond to infrastructure, interact with technology, and behave in both everyday and safety-critical situations. The UMO lab aims to design data collection systems and supporting methods, such as sensor network design, experimental design, sensor validation, and data fusion.

Job requirements

We are looking for a motivated candidate who has:

• A Master’s degree in a relevant field, such as transportation, human-computer interaction, mechanical engineering, cognitive science, or related disciplines.
• A solid background and strong interest in XR technologies and skills in developing XR applications using Unity or Unreal game engine.
• Strong and demonstrable experimental skills, including experimental design, experimental setup, conducting experiments, and data collection.
• Strong analytic and programming skills, such as Python and C#, with proficiency in statistics.
• Strong skills in qualitative and quantitative analysis.
• Excellent communication and writing skills in English and the ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders.
• Prior research and work experience relevant to this PhD position is a bonus.

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a level that enables the candidate to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis.

About TU Delft

TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering, and design to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health, and digital society.

About the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

The Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences (CEG) is committed to outstanding international research and education in civil engineering, applied earth sciences, traffic and transport, water technology, and delta technology. Its research addresses societal challenges such as climate change, energy transition, resource availability, urbanisation, and clean water, and is conducted in close cooperation with a wide range of research institutions. CEG supports open science in research practice.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, in the form of two employment contracts: an initial 1.5-year contract with an official go/no-go progress assessment within 15 months, followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2.5 years, assuming performance requirements are met.

As a PhD candidate, you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff, and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related, and research skills.

TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, a monthly work costs contribution, and flexible work schedules.

As part of knowledge security, TU Delft conducts a risk assessment during the recruitment of personnel to help prevent the unwanted transfer of sensitive knowledge and technology. The assessment takes place at the final stages of the selection process and is based on information provided by candidates, such as their motivation letter and CV.