Automated driving research over the past decades has mostly focused on highway environments. Recent technological developments have drawn researchers and manufacturers to look ahead at introducing automated driving in cities. The current position paper examines this challenge from the viewpoint of scientific experts. Sixteen Human Factors researchers were interviewed about their personal perspectives on automated vehicles (AVs) and the interaction with VRUs in the future urban environment. Aspects such as smart infrastructure, external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs), and the potential of augmented reality (AR) were addressed during the interviews. The interviews showed that the researchers believed that fully autonomous vehicles will not be introduced in the coming decades and that intermediate levels of automation, specific AV services, or shared control will be used instead. The researchers foresaw a large role of smart infrastructure and expressed a need for AV-VRU segregation, but were concerned about corresponding costs and maintenance requirements. The majority indicated that eHMIs will enhance future AV-VRU interaction, but they noted that implicit communication will remain dominant and advised against text-based and instructive eHMIs. AR was commended for its potential in assisting VRUs, but given the technological challenges, its use, for the time being, was believed to be limited to scientific experiments. The present expert perspectives may be instrumental to various stakeholders and researchers concerned with the relationship between VRUs and AVs in future urban traffic.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions; Innovative Training Networks (ITN); SHAPE-IT; Grant number 860410

Publication date: 4 January 2021

DOI: 10.1016/j.trip.2020.100293

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This driving-simulator study aimed to motivate cooperative lane-change maneuvers in automated freeway driving under human supervision. Two interaction concepts were designed based on game theory. These concepts supported drivers’ cooperation by applying both rewards and sanctions as the proverbial carrot and stick. The social-status interaction rewards gap creation by revealing a driver's prior cooperative behavior to other road users. The trade-off interaction introduces a system in which points compensate time loss and gain. Both concepts were evaluated from the left- and right-lane perspective, framing 39 participants to “be fast.” Drivers in the right lane asked those in the left lane to open a gap to overtake, mediated through a vehicle-to-vehicle connection and an augmented-reality user interface. Only 67% of the merging requests were accepted by left-lane drivers due to time pressure in the baseline condition. The social-status interaction enhanced acceptance to 86% on average and even to 97% for requests made by drivers marked as cooperative. The trade-off interaction enhanced acceptance to 87% as drivers gained a virtual benefit for losing one second. The subjective evaluation was positive for all conditions, and the social concepts were rated significantly higher on items associated with social relationships. Both social interaction concepts motivate cooperation and shape drivers’ behavior even under time pressure. Social mechanisms power maneuver-based local cooperation between traffic participants. It is expected that involving drivers in cooperative maneuvers has a beneficial effect on traffic performance, which microscopic traffic flow modeling should validate next. Gamified interaction and interface elements involve drivers of automated vehicles into strategic decisions and could help to mitigate automation effects. Since they don't “drive” any more, cooperative interaction concepts now make them “play driving” and formulate pleasing strategies.

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The differentially heated rotating annulus is a widely studied tabletop-size laboratory model of the general mid-latitude atmospheric circulation. The two most relevant factors of cyclogenesis, namely rotation and meridional temperature gradient are quite well captured in this simple arrangement. The radial temperature difference in the cylindrical tank and its rotation rate can be set so that the isothermal surfaces in the bulk tilt, leading to the formation of baroclinic waves. The signatures of these waves at the free water surface have been analyzed via infrared thermography in a wide range of rotation rates (keeping the radial temperature difference constant) and under different initial conditions. In parallel to the laboratory experiments, five groups of the MetStröm collaboration have conducted numerical simulations in the same parameter regime using different approaches and solvers, and applying different initial conditions and perturbations. The experimentally and numerically obtained baroclinic wave patterns have been evaluated and compared in terms of their dominant wave modes, spatio-temporal variance properties and drift rates. Thus certain "benchmarks" have been created that can later be used as test cases for atmospheric numerical model validation.@en