Look Who's Talking Now: Implications of AV's Explanations on Driver's Trust, AV Preference, Anxiety and Mental Workload

Explanations given by automation are often used to promote automation adoption. However, it remains unclear whether explanations promote acceptance of automated vehicles (AVs). In this study, we conducted a within-subject experiment in a driving simulator with 32 participants, using four different conditions. The four conditions included: (1) no explanation, (2) explanation given before or (3) after the AV acted and (4) the option for the driver to approve or disapprove the AV's action after hearing the explanation. We examined four AV outcomes: trust, preference for AV, anxiety and mental workload. Results suggest that explanations provided before an AV acted were associated with higher trust in and preference for the AV, but there was no difference in anxiety and workload. These results have important implications for the adoption of AVs.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, 3 Table

From fly-by-wire to drive-by-wire: Safety implications of automation in vehicles

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the current trend in automobile engineering toward automation of many of the functions previously performed by the driver. Working on the assumption that automation in aviation represents the basic model for driver automation, the costs and benefits of automation in aviation are explored as a means of establishing where automation of drivers' tasks are likely to yield benefits. It is concluded that there are areas where automation can provide benefits to the driver, but there are other areas where this is unlikely to be the case. Automation per se does not guarantee success, and therefore it becomes vital to involve Human Factors into design to identify where automation of driver functions can be allocated with a beneficial outcome for driving performance

Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks

The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues, other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.Comment: Transport Reviews, 201

Generalized Costs of Travel by Solo and Pooled Ridesourcing vs. Privately Owned Vehicles, and Policy Implications

The emergence of “3 Revolutions” in transportation (automation, electrification and shared mobility) presents a range of questions regarding how consumers will travel in the future, and under what conditions there may be rapid adoption of various services. These include individual on-demand taxi-style services, shared mobility in pooled services, and use of public transit, all with or without drivers. There is now enough data and estimates on the costs of these service combinations, and in some cases ridership data, to consider how consumers are making choices and could do so in the future as things evolve. This project involved: (a) reviewing existing literature and data on consumer mode and vehicle choice; (b) developing new “generalized cost” estimates that combine monetary and non-monetary (e.g., hedonic) components of travel choice, notably incorporating value of time; and (c) conducting a comparison of monetary and generalized trip cost for a range of trip types across travel options in the near term (2020) and longer term (2030-35). Three main travel options were considered: privately owned vehicles, ridesourced solo trips, and ridesourced pooled trips. Consideration of internal combustion vs. battery electric and, in the longer term, automated technology was also core to the analysis. The trips considered include urban and suburban types in the San Francisco metro area, using actual trip characteristics. The results suggest that in the near-term, solo ridesourcing is likely to be perceived as significantly more expensive (in terms of monetary and time costs) than pooled ridesourcing or solo private vehicle trips except for those with a very high value of time. Solo ridesourcing does better in dense, slow, urban trips than in faster suburban trips. In the longer term, with automated driverless vehicles, solo ridesourcing could become the cheapest mode for many travelers in a range of situations. This report includes an initial consideration of the implications of these policies for affecting travel choices, presumably to push choices toward pooled ridesourcing as a sustainable option. VMT-based pricing, pricing that could be adjusted with vehicle occupancy, and parking-related approaches are described. A large price signal might be needed to shift travel, given some of the differences in generalized cost found in this analysis

Amused, accepted, and used? Attitudes and emotions towards automated vehicles, their relationships, and predictive value for usage intention

Automated vehicles (AVs) have left the laboratories and can be experienced in several projects, e.g. at the premises of a clinic in Germany. With this transition, research on AV attitudes no longer needs to rely on questionnaires with hypothetical scenarios and simulations. Previous research – limited by the unavailability of AVs – has provided ambivalent results regarding age and gender differences in attitudes towards AVs. We present research results about the role of age and gender in connection with attitudes such as acceptance, perceived safety, and trust, as well as intention to use. We additionally demonstrate relationships between those constructs and emotions such as amusement, fear, and surprise. Data were collected from participants (n = 125) after having experienced an AV ride with level 4 automation on two campuses of a clinic in Berlin, Germany. Results reveal strong correlations between all attitudes (0.55 ≤ r ≤ 0.71; p < 0.01) and show acceptance and perceived safety to be solid predictors of intention to use AVs. We also found age to be a significant predictor for usage intention even when other attitudes are considered (β = −0.22; p < 0.01). MANOVA results point to gender differences in all constructs, but with limited confidence (5.40 ≤ F ≤ 18.34; p ≤ 0.02). However, we reject our hypothesis that young men are highly accepting, trusting, and intending to use AVs compared to other combinations of age and gender. We recommend using a mix of attitude, emotion, and behavioural (intention) measures in future research on AVs together with more transparency regarding construct definitions and study materials

Current Concepts and Trends in Human-Automation Interaction

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The purpose of this panel was to provide a general overview and discussion of some of the most current and controversial concepts and trends in human-automation interaction. The panel was composed of eight researchers and practitioners. The panelists are well-known experts in the area and offered differing views on a variety of different human-automation topics. The range of concepts and trends discussed in this panel include: general taxonomies regarding stages and levels of automation and function allocation, individualized adaptive automation, automation-induced complacency, economic rationality and the use of automation, the potential utility of false alarms, the influence of different types of false alarms on trust and reliance, and a system-wide theory of trust in multiple automated aids

Response Criterion Placement Modulates the Effects of Graded Alerting Systems on Human Performance and Learning in a Target Detection Task

Human operators can perform better with the use of an automated diagnostic aid than without the use of an aid in a signal detection task. This experiment aimed to determine whether any differences existed among graded aids—automated diagnostic aids that use a scale of confidence levels reflecting a spectrum of probabilistic information or uncertainty when making a judgment—that enabled better human detection performance, and either binary or graded aid produced better learning. Participants performed a visual search framed as a medical decision making task. Stimuli were arrays of random polygons (“cells”) generated by distorting a prototype shape. The target was a shape more strongly distorted than the accompanying distracters. A target was present on half of the trials. Each participant performed the task with the assistance of either a binary aid, one of three graded aids, or no aid. The aids’ sensitivities were the same (d′ = 2); the difference between the aids lay in the placement of their decision criteria, which determines a tradeoff between the aid’s predictive value and the frequency with which it makes a diagnosis. The graded aid with 90% reliability provided a judgment on the greatest number of trials, the graded aid with 94% reliability gave a judgment on fewer trials, and the third graded aid with 96% reliability gave a judgment on the least number of trials. The binary aid with 84% reliability gave a judgment on each trial. All aids improved human detection performance, though the graded aids trended towards improving performance more than the binary aid. The binary and graded aids did not produce significantly better or worse learning than did unaided performance. The binary and graded aids did not significantly help learning, but they certainly did not worsen human detection performance when compared to the unaided condition. These results imply that the decision boundaries of a graded alert might be fixed to encourage appropriate reliance on the aid and improve human detection performance, and indicate employing either a graded or binary automated aid may be beneficial to learning in a detection task

Measuring, analysing and explaining the value of travel time savings for autonomous driving

Autonomes Fahren (AF) wird potenziell die Präferenzen für die im Auto verbrachte Zeit stark beeinflussen und dementsprechend den Wert der Reisezeit, der ein Schlüsselelement von Kosten-Nutzen-Analysen im Verkehr ist. Die Untersuchung dieses Aspekts des AF ist daher entscheidend für die Analyse potenzieller Auswirkungen der Technik auf die zukünftige Verkehrsnachfrage. Trotz der steigenden Anzahl an Studien zu diesem Thema, gibt es noch erhebliche Forschungslücken. Der Fokus der Dissertation ist die potenziellen Änderungen des Reisezeitwerts, die durch das AF entstehen, zu messen sowie ihre Determinanten zu analysieren. Es wurden sowohl qualitative Ansätze als auch quantitative Methoden verwendet. Dabei wurden zwei Konzepte von AF betrachtet: privates und geteiltes autnomes Fahrzeug. Die Ergebnisse der Analysen zeigen einen niedrigeren Wert der Reisezeitersparnis beim AF im Vergleich zum manuellen Fahren, allerdings nur auf Pendelwegen. Das private Fahrzeug wird als eine attraktivere Option als ein geteiltes Fahrzeug wahrgenommen, jedoch unterscheiden sich die Nutzerpräferenzen für geteilte Fahrzeug stark zwischen den durchgeführten Studien. Individuelle Charakteristiken, wie Erfahrung mit Fahrassistenzsystemen, beeinflussen stark die Wahrnehmung der Zeit im AF; andere sozio-demographischen Faktoren, wie Alter und Geschlecht haben vor allem einen indirekten Effekt auf den Reisezeitwert indem sie Einstellungen potenzieller Nutzer beeinflussen. Die Verbesserung des Fahrterlebnisses durch das AF und das Vertrauen in die Technik sind wichtige Determinanten der Reisezeitwahrnehmung. Fahrvergnügen und andere wahrgenommene Vorteile vom manuellen Fahren gleichen in einem gewissen Ausmaß den Nutzen vom AF aus. Es wurden Reisezeitwerte für unterschiedliche potenzielle Nutzersegmente berechnet. Abschließend wurden politische Implikationen, Empfehlungen für die Entwicklung von AF sowie Empfehlungen für künftige Studien und potenziellen Forschungsgebiete abgeleitet.Autonomous driving will potentially strongly affect preferences for time spent in a vehicle and, consequently, the value of travel time savings (VTTS). As VTTS is a key element of cost-benefit analysis for transport, these interrelations are crucial for analysing the potential impact of the technology on future travel demand. Despite the increasing number of studies dedicated to this topic there are still many unanswered questions. The focus of the thesis is to measure potential changes in the VTTS resulting from the introduction of autonomous driving and analyse their determinants. Qualitative approaches and quantitative methods were used. Two concepts of AVs were considered: a privately-owned AV (PAV) and a shared AV (SAV). The analysis results suggest lower VTTS for autonomous driving compared to manual driving, but only on commuting trips. A PAV is perceived as a more attractive option than an SAV, but user preferences for SAVs vary between the conducted studies. Individual characteristics, such as experience with advanced driver assistance systems, strongly affect the perception of time in an AV; other socio-demographic factors, such as age and gender, affect mode choices and the VTTS mainly indirectly by influencing the attitudes of potential users. The improvement in travel experiences due to autonomous driving and trust in the technology are important determinants of the perception of travel time. Enjoyment of driving and other perceived benefits of manual driving partially counterbalance the utility of riding autonomously. VTTS for different potential user segments were calculated. In conclusion, several policy implications, development recommendations for AVs as well as recommendations for future studies and potential research avenues are derived from the findings

Carpooling Liability?: Applying Tort Law Principles to the Joint Emergence of Self-Driving Automobiles and Transportation Network Companies

Self-driving automobiles have emerged as the future of vehicular travel, but this innovation is not developing in isolation. Simultaneously, the popularity of transportation network companies functioning as ride-hailing and ride-sharing services have altered traditional conceptions of personal transportation. Technology companies, conventional automakers, and start-up businesses each play significant roles in fundamentally transforming transportation methods. These transformations raise numerous liability questions. Specifically, the emergence of self-driving vehicles and transportation network companies create uncertainty for the application of tort law’s negligence standard. This Note addresses technological innovations in vehicular transportation and their accompanying legislative and regulatory developments. Then, this Note discusses the implications for vicarious liability for vehicle owners, duties of care for vehicle operators, and corresponding insurance regimes. This Note also considers theoretical justifications for tort concepts including enterprise liability. Accounting for the inevitable uncertainty in applying tort law to new invention, this Note proposes a strict and vicarious liability regime with corresponding no-fault automobile insurance