Institute for Transport Studies FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT

Road users’ comprehension of automated driverless vehicles

Tyron Louw, Natasha Merat, Anna Schieben and Marc Dziennus

University of Leeds

German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

Introduction

•  EU cities face four main mobility problems: •  Congestion, Land use, Safety, Environment

•  Cause? Car-ownership rate

•  Inner cities vs periphery/small cities

•  Automated Road Transport System (ARTS)

•  New technology, need to investigate: •  Comprehension

•  Acceptance

Aims

•  To gauge participants’ understanding of and attitude to driverless cars.

•  To understand what information users need from driverless cars when in an impending conflict situation

Method

•  Semi-structured interviews at Leeds & DLR •  Videos, pictures and hypothetical scenarios demonstrating

the capabilities of such vehicles

•  Psychological models of trust, acceptability and acceptance of new technologies •  e.g. UTAUT (Vankatesh et al., 2003) TAM (Davis, 1989)

•  26 participants

•  13 male, 13 female •  14 < 30 yrs and 12 > 40 yrs

Interviews: Section 1

•  Attitudes towards ARTS

•  How they might be integrated into society

•  Where and for whom they might be most useful

•  Started with two videos on ‘driverless cars’: BMW and Induct

Interviews: Section 2

•  Presented scenarios in shared or dedicated lane

•  Questioned as pedestrians, cyclists and drivers

Interviews: Section 3

•  Preferences of cybercars and their environments

•  Perception of how trust and social influence might influence their usage

Interview summary 1: General impression

•  Naive about the concept (Only 20% knew)

•  Curious but not dismissive •  60% did not see benefit of an ARTS above

and beyond existing public transport What did they think about:

•  Environment: park and ride, hospitals, link between airport and train station

•  Situations: night services, shuttle, door to door, after drinking •  Groups of people: mobility problems, older drivers, young

people, no car/licence

Interview summary 2: Scenarios

•  People generally trusting but also concerned for their safety

•  Preferred dedicated to shared

•  Preferred interactions at clear demarcations, e.g. zebra crossing or clearly marked lanes

•  80%+ expect ARTS to obey rules of the road

Interview summary 3: Information from cars

Difficult! No previous experience •  Design

•  Has to be like a ‘normal’ car/bus

•  Sturdy-looking design

•  Mixed social influence (50%)

•  Only 36% thought public engagement is necessary.

Interview summary 3: Information from cars

•  Information •  50% said they don’t need information

•  Must confirm detection •  Display information regarding movement:

•  Stopping/slowing

•  Future intentions

•  Speedometer on the outside

•  Auditory warnings (80%+)

Other comments Positive Negative

Trust & Use ü (88%) before and after

Slow

“Impressive technology” Expensive

“Green approach to transport” No point to point capability/not flexible Limited capacity

Fear of technology (break/unreliable) Safety and security

Trust: no driver

Next steps?

•  Large scale questionnaire: On-road demonstrations

•  Current: Oristano, Sardinia

•  Future: •  La Rochelle, France

•  Showcases: •  Leon, Spain

•  CERN, Switzerland

•  2015 ITS World Congress, Bordeaux

Thank you

Contact details:

Tyron Louw Institute for Transport Studies

t.l.louw@leeds.ac.uk