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Imagine a future where you interact with a driverless vehicle (DV) at the intersection. As there is no human driver, the DV cannot use traditional driver-based signals (e.g., hand gestures, eye contact, and nodding) to communicate intent with you. As it is difficult to judge the vehicle intent, you might not feel safe and certain. To reduce uncertainty, what if the DV communicates with a light display on the vehicle or on the road infrastructure? Would you feel safer in the interactions and trust DVs? Would you be relaxed to know DV intent in the interactions? Ultimately, would you drive more safely and efficiently when you know DV’s intent?

To know more about the experiment, read my thesis, watch this video, or contact me: Shiva Nischal Lingam (S.N.LINGAM@student.tudelft.nl)

Consider a situation where you are driving your vehicle in a normal traffic situation. Suddenly you see a vehicle merging from an on-ramp in front of you. You very well recognize this brand of vehicle and it’s a self-driving vehicle. Would you be more cautious while interacting with this vehicle or curious to know more about the vehicle? Would you be more stressed while driving near this vehicle or more relaxed with the fact that this vehicle is continuously monitoring the environment and programmed to drive safely? Or more interestingly, would you drive and interact with this vehicle in the same manner as you would normally do with any other human-driven vehicle? Read more about this experiment in the Master thesis of Shubham Soni.