Abstract Summary
Since the early 19th century, we trust our lives in cars driving at high speeds in complex traffic. Trust in vehicle technology is justified since the vehicle design and production process has resulted in very high-reliability levels. Vehicle automation technology has not yet reached a level of maturity that is comparable to vehicle functioning in manual driving. A range of today’s passenger cars provides SAE Level 2 automation through Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Centring Systems, requiring the permanent supervision of human drivers to ensure the reliable and safe operation of the automated driving system (SAE, 2018). Drivers shall be aware of the limitations of Level 2 automation and shall not overtrust automation as this will lead to misuse and will threaten road safety. Higher automation levels (SAE Level 3+) gradually reduce the level of supervision of human drivers, allowing human drivers to direct attention away from the driving task and the supervision of the performance of the automated driving system to the engagement in eyes-off road activities. The efficient, comfortable and safe use of these higher automation systems requires high levels of trust in and perceived safety of vehicle automation technology. Hence undertrust can become a bottleneck in acceptance of Level 3+ automation. While automation levels and their operational design domain are gradually evolving in passenger cars and trucks, a more revolutionary introduction of automation is prepared in public transport. Driverless shuttles are being tested at low speeds in semi-public controlled environments under the supervision of safety stewards on board, but will we trust our lives to automated vehicles without steer and pedals and physical human supervision? In a recent survey where shuttle users were not aware of the presence of a safety steward, a majority of users indicated they would not feel safe without any type of human supervision by means of a remote control room or steward on board (Nordhoff et al., 2019).
