Implicit Interaction with an Autonomous Personal Mobility Vehicle: Relations of Pedestrians’ Gaze Behavior with Situation Awareness and Perceived Risks

Abstract

Interactions between pedestrians and autonomous personal mobility vehicle (APMV) will increase with the popularity of autonomous driving systems. However, when the APMVs are applied in a mixed traffic environment after manual driving PMV (MPMV) have been popular, pedestrians may feel unsafe in the interactions when they are uncertain about the driving intention of the APMV. This study seeks to find a surrogate measure for pedestrians’ understanding of driving intention and perceived safety during the interaction with an APMV. We conducted an experiment to measure the gaze duration and subjective evaluations of the participants when they interacted with a PMV in manual and autonomous driving modes. Pedestrians fixed their gaze at the APMV longer when they did not accurately understand the driving intention than when they understood it. Furthermore, the pedestrians perceived danger when they did not clearly understand the driving intention of the APMV. Besides, these factors were different when pedestrians interact with an MPMV and an APMV.