Passenger opinions of the perceived safety and interaction with automated shuttles: A test ride study with ‘hidden’ safety steward

Sina Nordhoff,Bart Van Arem,Jork Stapel,Riender Happee

doi:10.1016/j.tra.2020.05.009

Abstract

Abstract A necessary condition for the effective integration of automated vehicles in our daily lives is their acceptance by passengers inside and pedestrians and cyclists outside the automated vehicle. 119 respondents experienced an automated shuttle ride with a ‘hidden steward on board’ in a mixed traffic environment in Berlin-Schoneberg. A mixed-method approach was applied gathering qualitative interview data during the ride and quantitative questionnaire data after the ride. Responses were classified into three main categories: (1) Perceived safety, (2) interactions with automated shuttles in crossing situations, and (3) communication with automated shuttles. Respondents associated their perceptions of safety with the low speed, dynamic object and event identification, longitudinal and lateral control, pressing the emergency button inside the shuttle, their general trust in technology, sharing the shuttle with fellow travellers, the operation of the shuttle in a controlled environment, and the behaviour of other road users outside the shuttle. Respondents pressed the emergency button inside the automated shuttle on 28 out of 62 test rides in order to test its behavior. They further expected to be more cautious in crossing the road before an automated shuttle due to the lack of eye contact with the human driver and a lack of trust in the behavior of the automated shuttle, and expected road users testing the automated shuttle due to the conservative driving behavior of automated shuttles. We recommend future research into the hypothesis that the acceptance of automated shuttles will be associated with the perceived safety of and their effective and intuitive interaction and communication with both passengers and other road users.

Highlights

The past years have shown a dramatic upsurge of scientific publications in the field of automated driving
The first category – perceived safety – represents an assembly of eight factors that respondents associated with the perceived safety of traveling as passengers in automated shuttles
Speed Concerning their personal safety inside the shuttle, several respondents attributed their positive safety perceptions to the low speed of the automated shuttle: “Yes, it’s slow, so it’s safe.” (TR16) “It seems very slow

Summary

Introduction

The past years have shown a dramatic upsurge of scientific publications in the field of automated driving. Ample studies focused on automated vehicle technology, and examined impacts on transport, mobility and society. The user acceptance of automated vehicles is gaining attention as exemplified by our multi-level model on automated vehicle acceptance (MAVA) that summarizes current trends of acceptance research on the basis of 124 empirical studies (Nordhoff et al, 2019a). The acceptance of automated vehicles does depend on occupants inside automated vehicles – the car drivers and passengers – and on vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists outside automated vehicles. Managing safe and efficient interactions between automated vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists provides a necessary condition for the successful deployment and acceptance of automated vehicles by vehicle occupants inside and pedestrians and cyclists outside automated vehicles (Merat et al, 2019).

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Conclusion