Toward shared control between automated vehicles and users

Technological developments in the domain of vehicle automation are targeted toward driverless, or driver-out-of-the-loop driving. The main societal motivation for this ambition is that the majority of (fatal) accidents with manually driven vehicles are due to human error. However, when interacting with technology, users often experience the need to customize the technology to their personal preferences. This paper considers how this might apply to vehicle automation, by a conceptual analysis of relevant use cases. The analysis proceeds by comparing how handling of relevant situations is likely to differ between manual driving and automated driving. The results of the analysis indicate that full out-of-the-loop automated driving may not be acceptable to users of the technology. It is concluded that a technology that allows shared control between the vehicle and the user should be pursued. Furthermore, implications of this view are explored for the concrete temporal dynamics of shared control, and general characteristics of human machine interface that support shared control are proposed. Finally, implications of the proposed view and directions for further research are discussed