Interaction between automated vehicles and other traffic

An important goal of the research into automated driving involves automated driving in mixed traffic situations. This means situations where automated vehicles must interact with non-automated traffic (cars, cyclists, pedestrians).

Expected results

The research focuses on how automated vehicles should respond to other traffic, but also vice versa. The response of other traffic to automated vehicles will be researched as well. There is little data available on the latter topic, in particular.

An interesting question to pose in that line of research is the extent to which a learning effect occurs. Will other traffic “adapt” to automated vehicles and what effects will that have on driving behaviour?

Typical aspects for evaluation are the actual safety and the subjective sense of safety, the infrastructure capacity, operating speed, travel speed, etc.

Experiment characteristics

•     Large variety of road configurations
•     Large variety of traffic conditions
•     Realistic circumstances
•     Longer period