User acceptance of cooperative maneuver-based driving - a summary of three studies

Modern cars offer drivers support with the help of a number of driver assistance systems. Those systems aim to relieve drivers through assumption of sub parts of the driving task (e.g. in case of an Adaptive Cruise Control by regulation of vehicle speed and time gap to preceding vehicle). Today, systems are controlled and monitored separately which leads to efforts to combine the functionality of all systems in an overlying assistance for drivers. The approach of the University of Technology Darmstadt is called Conduct-by-Wire and can be seen as a cooperative maneuver-based driving paradigm, where the driver gives maneuver command to the systems which are automatically executed. This paper summarizes the results of three studies which investigated the user acceptance of this driving paradigm. Overall, it can be said that the acceptance of the system depends on personal traits of the driver and on the driving situation. Almost all participants are willing to use Conduct-by-Wire for routine tasks such as commuting, which makes the systems interesting for company cars. Still, there remain a number of drivers who are not willing to use such a highly automated system at all.