Design Method of Small Recreational Vehicle’s Interior Space Based on User Behavior Data Analysis

With the growing popularity of leisure travel, small recreational vehicles have gained significant attention for their flexibility and cost-effectiveness. A crucial aspect of recreational vehicle design is the interior space, which heavily influences the users’ satisfaction. This paper introduces a novel approach to designing recreational vehicles’ interior space based on users’ behavior data analysis. Firstly, drawing on the properties of the correlation coefficient in statistics, the correlation degree between different functional facilities is defined according to the usage time interval to establish the correlation degree matrix; then, the correlation degree matrix is proved to be a real symmetric positive definite matrix; finally, based on the correlation degree matrix, the factor analysis method is adopted for grouping all the functional facilities to maximize the correlation degrees between functional facilities in the same group and minimize the ones between different groups so as to better satisfy the users’ needs for convenience. A case study using the CCHW–Weiman recreational vehicle demonstrates the effectiveness of this method. Male passengers’ average movement distances during typical activities—washing, cooking, and sleeping—decreased by 17.18%, 36.34%, and 30.68%, respectively, while female passengers’ average movement distances decreased by 13.75%, 37.70%, and 18.82%, respectively. The results suggest that the proposed method offers a data-driven, user-centered approach to improving the interior space of recreational vehicles.