ROME – There are many pedestrians who still do not trust self-driving vehicles today. This is what emerged from the analysis of the Immersive Arena of Workpackage 4 (WP4) of the European project “PAsCAL” (acronym for Enhance driver behavior and Public Acceptance of Connected and Autonomous vehicLes – Improving driver behavior and public acceptance of connected vehicles and autonomous). The experiments involved carrying out a series of activities dedicated to assessing the acceptance and behavior of pedestrians in front of connected and autonomous vehicles (Cavs). From the simulations carried out in the special arena with large screens and cameras, a certainty emerged: pedestrians fear that the so-called Cavs will not behave in the right way towards them.
Two methods were used to define the scenario of the experiment. First of all, the selection of the different eHMIs (The external human-machine interface, i.e. the interface between the autonomous machine and man) proposed by the manufacturers or by the scientific literature, with particular attention to visual eHMIs, which was followed by the organization of two focus groups to collect pedestrian habits.
The focus groups were repeated twice, for a total of 14 participants. Using videoconferencing, due to the health emergency, these focus groups (each made up of seven people) then used two interface modes (“Proposition Value Canvas” and interactions between CAV and pedestrians during a road crossing).
Participants were then asked to express an opinion on the risks and benefits of introducing the CAVs, but also to indicate what could help them see CAVs as reliable vehicles. Based on what emerged from this experience, some categories of eHMI, such as anthropomorphic, have been eliminated, while the preferred eHMIs have been selected and combined with different needs to propose new ones in order to accelerate the user-friendly evolution. of vehicles and connected automated transport systems. (maurilio rigo)
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