Increasing trust in fully automated driving

Abstract

Cooperative, intelligent transportation systems (C-ITSs) have capabilities far beyond what human drivers can achieve. For instance, intelligent systems that plan the exact trajectories of vehicles could increase throughput at intersections, allowing vehicles to pass with high speed and without any need for traffic lights. It is imaginable that C-ITS will manage traffic in fully automated driving (FAD). However, the unpredictable behavior patterns of the automated vehicle (AV) are also likely to make the occupants feel uncomfortable. FAD systems operate based on a vast amount of information. As this information is potentially invisible to individuals, the question is if users trust FAD systems. We hypothesize that users experiencing such scenarios would demand system feedback to anticipate upcoming system decisions and maneuvers. Therefore, we evaluated five augmented reality (AR) user interface (UI) concepts aiming to increase system transparency in a user study (N = 30) in a driving simulation in virtual reality (VR). Our results support the assumption that feedback about the system state (in the form of route information) significantly increases trust in AVs. As trust is highly subjective, we propose to provide experience-based route visualization systems in FAD to meet individuals' needs.