Drivers' communicative interactions: on-road observations and modelling for integration in future automation systems |
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Authors: | Evangelia Portouli Dimitris Nathanael Nicolas Marmaras |
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Affiliation: | Sector of Industrial Management and Operations Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, Ergonomics Unit, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou, Greece |
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Abstract: | Social interactions with other road users are an essential component of the driving activity and may prove critical in view of future automation systems; still up to now they have received only limited attention in the scientific literature. In this paper, it is argued that drivers base their anticipations about the traffic scene to a large extent on observations of social behaviour of other ‘animate human-vehicles’. It is further argued that in cases of uncertainty, drivers seek to establish a mutual situational awareness through deliberate communicative interactions. A linguistic model is proposed for modelling these communicative interactions. Empirical evidence from on-road observations and analysis of concurrent running commentary by 25 experienced drivers support the proposed model. It is suggested that the integration of a social interactions layer based on illocutionary acts in future driving support and automation systems will improve their performance towards matching human driver's expectations. Practitioner Summary: Interactions between drivers on the road may play a significant role in traffic coordination. On-road observations and running commentaries are presented as empirical evidence to support a model of such interactions; incorporation of drivers' interactions in future driving support and automation systems may improve their performance towards matching driver's expectations. |
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Keywords: | drivers' interactions linguistic model anticipation of intent driving support and automation systems |
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