# Marieke Martens

**Source**: https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/marieke-martens
**Parent**: https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/11-03-2026-designing-for-certainty-in-the-sky

Full Professor

# Marieke Martens

- [PURE url](https://research.tue.nl/en/persons/marieke-h-martens/ "Research Portal")

##### Contact

[m.h.martens@tue.nl](#)

[+31 40 247 7330](tel:+31402477330)

[Atlas 4.4.129](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=51.447343,5.486125)

##### Department / Institute

[EAISI](https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-groups/eaisi)

[Industrial Design](https://www.tue.nl/en/our-university/departments/industrial-design)

##### Group

EAISI Mobility

[Designing With Intelligence](https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-groups/designing-with-intelligence)

Industrial Design Research

## RESEARCH PROFILE

Marieke Martens is a full professor ‘Automated Vehicles & Human Interaction’ at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Marieke is primarily interested in research related to human behaviour and automated driving. Despite the fact that this innovation was primarily technology driven, the world is showing that the human role remains to be of major importance for traffic safety and societal readiness. Interestingly, where human error has often been named one of the key drivers of developing automated driving, current challenges of automated driving are more and more related to the human factor. After all, we are developing this to serve humans and to bring people and their preferred goods in a safe and comfortable manner from A to B. Some examples of the questions that arise are: Do users still understand their vehicle now that more and more diversified functions are combined on 1 vehicle? What does the vehicle need to explain to the passenger inside about its next action to overcome automation surprise, even in non-critical events and to prepare the user for his/her role? How do we need to design a transparent transition from automated driving back to the human who has been out-of-the loop? And how do we make sure the actions of Avs align with societal values? Do other road users still know how to interact with automated vehicles if the systems do not always respond in a human like manner? And will society as a whole accept automated vehicles if not all accidents can be ruled out and how to we make sure the user is not the one who still gets blamed in case something goes wrong? The interesting element here is that we can form and shape this transition and development by taking Human Factors and Industrial Design expertise into account in the development of these vehicles, ensuring the usability, adaptivity and safety of these systems. Systems need to be and feel safe and comfortable to use and need to naturally blend into our current traffic system, including vulnerable road users.

Seamless human-centered automation is what is needed. The real challenge is not only to increase the reliability of automated vehicles, but to design them in such a way that they will add value to humans beings and society.

> Seamless human-centered automation is what is needed. The real challenge is not only to increase the reliability of automated vehicles, but to design them in such a way that they will add value to humans beings and society.

## ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Marieke studied Experimental and Cognitive Psychology at the Free University of Amsterdam. Since 1996 she has been working as a research in the area of human factors and traffic behavior at TNO, covering a variety of topics such as self-explaining roads, traffic safety, driver state, distraction, visual attention, road user behavior, driver support, smart mobility and automated vehicles. She received her PhD in 2007 from the Free University of Amsterdam entitled: ‘The failure to act upon important information: Where do things go wrong?’. From 2015 until 2019 she has been a professor ITS & Human Factors at the University of Twente, and since June 2019 she was appointed full professor Automated Vehicles and Human Interaction. From 2018 till 2024 she was Director of Science of the TNO Unit Traffic & Transport and part of the steering committee of APPL.AI, the TNO AI research initiative. For 10 years she has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of SWOV, she was part of the EU expert group on Ethics of automated mobility and part of different advisory boards and editorial boards, including different ISO committee meetings focusing on human behavior and part of HF-IRADS (Human Factors of International Regulations of Automated Driving Systems, linked to UNECE. Since January 2024, she is board member of NWO-Applied Engineering Sciences.

## Recent Publications

- [See all publications](https://research.tue.nl/en/persons/marieke-h-martens//publications/)

- [### Modelling societal preferences for automated vehicle behaviour with ethical goal functions

  Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 

  (2025)

  Chloe Gros,Leon Kester,Marieke Martens,Peter Werkhoven](https://research.tue.nl/nl/publications/cf8e3a47-b17d-4feb-a264-c4e481ade873)
- [### A methodology for ethical decision-making in automated vehicles

  AI and Society

  (2025)

  Chloe Gros,Peter Werkhoven,Leon Kester,Marieke Martens](https://research.tue.nl/nl/publications/b2a8f94c-811d-420c-9de5-6fab4476e210)
- [### Ethical frameworks for automated vehicles

  AI and Ethics

  (2025)

  Chloe Gros,Marieke Martens,Nadisha-Marie Aliman,Leon Kester,Peter Werkhoven](https://research.tue.nl/nl/publications/f31de735-6b70-45d9-a4fe-16489b653c75)
- [### Pedestrian Planet

  17th International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, Automotive UI 2025

  (2025)

  Md Shadab Alam,Marieke H. Martens,Pavlo Bazilinskyy](https://research.tue.nl/nl/publications/5d55a335-c44f-4222-b9ae-3d1ef64efa7c)
- [### Human interactions with delivery drones in public spaces

  Frontiers in Robotics and AI

  (2025)

  Shiva Nischal Lingam,Rutger Verstegen,Sebastiaan M. Petermeijer,Marieke Martens](https://research.tue.nl/nl/publications/2f02c12e-82b8-4450-88b8-c16dc257f8f8)

## Ancillary Activities

- Research, TNO
- Principal Scientist, TNO
- Board Member AES, NWO
- Bestuurslid Domein Toegepaste Technische Wetenschappen, NWO
- advisor, Onderzoeksraad voor de Veiligheid