Interactions of Automated Vehicles with Road Users

As the control of driving tasks is increasingly transferred from the human driver to the on-board sensor and computer systems, a potential gap in communication is created between the car as an entity, and other road users. How can pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers be certain that an automated vehicle is aware of the different road users in its environment and will do the ‘right thing’? In the need for creating a sense of optimal trust in automated vehicles, particularly in the nascent stages of their development and introduction to traffic, this communication gap needs to be filled. This chapter looks at the state of the art of the research that tries to answer this question, and lays out some common considerations and recommendations for the design of such systems.