Trust and Control in Autonomous Vehicle Interactions

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to reduce traffic accidents and improve road safety. Ironically, public skepticism due to the risk and safety considerations remains one of the major barriers to the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles. Therefore, trust is vital to the promotion of the acceptance of this new technology. This abstract summarizes some recent research on trust in autonomous vehicles and our proposal to promote trust between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians. We aim to develop a trust framework based on expectations, behaviors and communication between the pedestrian and the autonomous vehicle. We describe a user study that is designed to determine the effects of driving behavior and situational characteristics on a pedestrian’s trust in autonomous vehicles.