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SAV2P-shared automated vehicle to pedestrian communication : exploring the impact of an interface for shared automated vehicles on pedestrians' level of comfort

Böckle, Marc-Philipp (2017) SAV2P-shared automated vehicle to pedestrian communication : exploring the impact of an interface for shared automated vehicles on pedestrians' level of comfort.

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Abstract:With the introduction of shared automated vehicles (SAVs), a shift in the communication from driver-to-pedestrian to shared automated vehicle-topedestrian (SAV2P) emerges. Having no steering wheel and no responsible person in the inside of an SAV, pedestrians might feel uncomfortable in crossing the street in front of an SAV. To study future communication needs between pedestrians and SAVs, an interface that communicates intentions of SAVs to pedestrians was designed and implemented in a virtual reality (VR) environment. This enabled the exploration of behaviors and experiences of 34 pedestrians when encountering SAVs, both with and without the interface, in several street crossing situations. In a within subject design, all participants assessed the level of perceived safety and comfort in crossing the street encountering the SAV with the SAV2P interface on and off. This master thesis comprises four phases: 1) requirement analysis, 2) conceptualization and design of an interaction concept, 3) development of an SAV2P interface & a VR environment, and 4) utilization of the VR environment in a user study to investigate the impact of the SAV2P interface on pedestrians’ perceived safety and comfort when interacting with SAVs. The results from the user study show that participants have a high level of confidence in understanding the SAV2P interface and indicate that they prefer to have an interface that is communicating the intentions of the SAV. The pedestrians’ level of perceived safety and comfort is higher in encounters of the SAV with the SAV2P interface than in encounters without the interface. This may have a positive influence on the acceptance of SAVs, and implies that future SAVs may gain from this, or similar, interface. The major contributions of this work encompass: a) knowledge of how pedestrians may interact with SAVs, b) an SAV2P interface prototype that addresses this interaction, c) a VR environment to test interactions between pedestrian and SAVs, and d) a test procedure and method to evaluate an interface prototype in VR. Future work raised by this thesis project includes the conduction of additional research studies that study more traffic situations, interaction designs and a more heterogeneous participant group. Furthermore, a next step may be the improvement of the VR environment (robustness, quality and control) and to find out in which cases VR is an appropriate method to study interactions. Keywords: Behavior studies; exterior interaction; HCI; interaction concept; pedestrian; Shared Automated Vehicles; user study; virtual reality.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:05 communication studies, 54 computer science
Programme:Interaction Technology MSc (60030)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/79898
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