The researchers from the universities of Göttingen, Duisburg-Essen and Trier entrusted various mixed teams with transport tasks, including vehicles. They measured the time the groups needed to meet the challenges. It turned out that transport processes were most efficiently coordinated by mixed teams of humans and machines. They also had the lowest number of accidents. The result surprised the scientists, as automated machine processes are generally regarded as highly efficient. The researchers concluded that “excessive fears” of job loss due to automation are unjustified: humans and machines are obviously at their best when working together.

Safe and successful cooperation nevertheless requires a number of conditions to be fulfilled. The German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) has already published several papers dealing with various aspects of human and machine interaction.