SAFER Research & Project Day

Tomorrow I will present some of the main results from the L3Pilot project. The overall aim of the project was to test the viability of automated driving as a safe and efficient means of transportation. As part of the project, Chalmers together with our partner Volvo Cars, conducted several studies to investigate the effects of increasing automation in passenger vehicles on driver behavior. Three of the studies were conducted on the AstaZero test track and one of the studies was conducted on public road (real traffic) in Gothenburg.

Assessing the safety of vehicle automation is not a simple task. The main reason is that we don’t have the automated vehicles on the road yet. Thus, the impact on these future cars on for example user behavior and traffic safety can only be estimated based on assumptions (which may or may not be in line with the final truth). The safety-assessment-approach used by us was to expose drivers to different types of vehicle automation (assisted driving and automated driving) followed by different events that required them to respond. For comparison purposes we included a baseline drive (manual driving with or without assistance of an adaptive cruise control) when applicable. Then, we observe and measure how drivers respond to these different events, and sometimes compare to the behavior in the baseline drive.

The findings are summarized in a set of journal papers; three are already published and can be found here, here and here. In addition, the project resulted in a set of deliverables that can be downloaded here.