Automated driving can fundamentally change road transportation and improve quality of life. However, at present, the role of humans in automated vehicles (AVs) is not clearly established. Interviews were conducted in April and May 2015 with twelve expert researchers in the field of Human Factors (HF) of automated driving to identify commonalities and distinctive perspectives regarding HF challenges in the development of AVs. The experts indicated that an AV up to SAE Level 4 should inform its driver about the AV's capabilities and operational status, and ensure safety while changing between automated and manual modes. HF research should particularly address interactions between AVs, human drivers, and vulnerable road users. Additionally, driver training programs may have to be modified to ensure that humans are capable of using AVs. Finally, a reflection on the interviews is provided, showing discordance between the interviewees' statements-which appear to be in line with a long history of work on human factors research, and the rapid development of automation technology. We expect our perspective to be instrumental for stakeholders involved in AV development and instructive to other parties.

While traffic signals, signs, and road markings provide explicit guidelines for those operating in and around the roadways, some decisions, such as determinations of “who will go first,” are made by implicit negotiations between road users. In such situations, pedestrians are today often dependent on cues in drivers’ behavior such as eye contact, postures, and gestures. With the introduction of more automated functions and the transfer of control from the driver to the vehicle, pedestrians cannot rely on such non-verbal cues anymore. To study how the interaction between pedestrians and automated vehicles (AVs) might look like in the future, and how this might be affected if AVs were to communicate their intent to pedestrians, we designed an external vehicle interface called automated vehicle interaction principle (AVIP) that communicates vehicles’ mode and intent to pedestrians. The interaction was explored in two experiments using a Wizard of Oz approach to simulate automated driving. The first experiment was carried out at a zebra crossing and involved nine pedestrians. While it focused mainly on assessing the usability of the interface, it also revealed initial indications related to pedestrians’ emotions and perceived safety when encountering an AV with/without the interface. The second experiment was carried out in a parking lot and involved 24 pedestrians, which enabled a more detailed assessment of pedestrians’ perceived safety when encountering an AV, both with and without the interface. For comparison purposes, these pedestrians also encountered a conventional vehicle. After a short training course, the interface was deemed easy for the pedestrians to interpret. The pedestrians stated that they felt significantly less safe when they encountered the AV without the interface, compared to the conventional vehicle and the AV with the interface. This suggests that the interface could contribute to a positive experience and improved perceived safety in pedestrian encounters with AVs – something that might be important for general acceptance of AVs. As such, this topic should be further investigated in future studies involving a larger sample and more dynamic conditions.

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One of the major reasons behind traffic accidents is misinterpretation among road users. Self-driving vehicles are expected to reduce these accidents, given that they are designed with all road users in mind. Recently, research on the design of vehicle-pedestrian communication has emerged, but to our knowledge, there is no research published that investigates the design of interfaces for intent communication towards child pedestrians. This paper reports the initial steps towards the examination of children's views and understandings about the appearance and intention communication of self-driving vehicles. It adopts a design inclusive methodological approach for the development of a prototype for the communication of two basic intentions: "I am going to stop" and "I am going to proceed". The initial results indicate children's need to be aware about the autonomy of the vehicle and the use of their previous experience with traffic signs for the interpretation of communicative signs of the vehicle.

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