This project aims to understand the link between trust, safety, and the public acceptance of driverless cars. The uptake of autonomous mobility systems relies upon public trust. Recent injuries, and even a fatality, have highlighted the risks they pose to pedestrians in particular. The project investigates new interfaces for improving  public trust and pedestrian safety by allowing vehicles to communicate with the people around them. Along the  way, it develops a validated approach for simulating real interactions with autonomous vehicles in a virtual-reality environment. Benefits include strategies for making driverless cars safer for pedestrians and a new approach for testing solutions to this emerging problem in a low-cost, low-risk way.

This project aims to understand how autonomous vehicles in urban environments need to interact with the people that they share those spaces with. Autonomous vehicles that are able to operate in shared spaces, such as campuses and pedestrian zones, promise to improve urban life. However, their uptake depends heavily on public acceptance as they operate in close proximity to people. The project investigates whether people are more likely to trust the technology and feel safe if they are able to understand how the system makes decisions and to directly influence its behaviour. Outcomes are expected to promote safe behaviour around urban robotic applications and accelerate the uptake of autonomous systems in Australia’s cities.