To be successful, automated vehicles (AVs) need to be able to manoeuvre in mixed traffic in a way that will be accepted by road users, and maximises traffic safety and efficiency. A likely prerequisite for this success is for AVs to be able to communicate effectively with other road users in a complex traffic environment. The current study, conducted as part of the European project interACT, investigates the communication strategies used by drivers and pedestrians while crossing the road at six observed locations, across three European countries. In total, 701 road user interactions were observed and annotated, using an observation protocol developed for this purpose. The observation protocols identified 20 event categories, observed from the approaching vehicles/drivers and pedestrians. These included information about movement, looking behaviour, hand gestures, and signals used, as well as some demographic data. These observations illustrated that explicit communication techniques, such as honking, flashing headlights by drivers, or hand gestures by drivers and pedestrians, rarely occurred. This observation was consistent across sites. In addition, a follow-on questionnaire, administered to a sub-set of the observed pedestrians after crossing the road, found that when contemplating a crossing, pedestrians were more likely to use vehicle-based behaviour, rather than communication cues from the driver. Overall, the findings suggest that vehicle-based movement information such as yielding cues are more likely to be used by pedestrians while crossing the road, compared to explicit communication cues from drivers, although some cultural differences were observed. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to design of suitable external interfaces and communication of intent by future automated vehicles.

中文翻译：

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道路使用者在当今交通中互动时很少使用明确的交流：对自动驾驶汽车的影响

为了取得成功，自动驾驶汽车 (AV) 需要能够以道路使用者接受的方式在混合交通中进行机动，并最大限度地提高交通安全和效率。这种成功的一个可能的先决条件是自动驾驶汽车能够在复杂的交通环境中与其他道路使用者有效沟通。目前的研究作为欧洲项目 interACT 的一部分进行，调查了三个欧洲国家的六个观察地点的司机和行人过马路时使用的沟通策略。使用为此目的开发的观察协议，总共观察和注释了 701 次道路用户交互。观察协议确定了从接近的车辆/司机和行人观察到的 20 个事件类别。这些包括有关运动、外观行为、手势和使用的信号，以及一些人口统计数据。这些观察结果表明，很少出现明确的交流技术，例如司机按喇叭、闪前灯或司机和行人的手势。这一观察结果在各个站点之间是一致的。此外，对过马路后观察到的行人的一个子集进行的后续问卷调查发现，在考虑过马路时，行人更有可能使用基于车辆的行为，而不是来自驾驶员的交流线索。总体而言，研究结果表明，尽管观察到了一些文化差异，但与来自司机的明确沟通线索相比，行人在过马路时更有可能使用基于车辆的运动信息，例如让路线索。