Perceptions and Understanding of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Vehicle Automation

Introduction

Advanced vehicle technologies, including advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), are being integrated into the vehicle fleet at an accelerating pace, while higher levels of automation, commonly known as automated driving systems (ADS), continue to be actively researched, tested, and incrementally deployed in limited commercial applications. These systems offer meaningful safety and convenience benefits, but they also introduce significant complexity to the driving task — particularly as automation takes on a greater share of driving responsibilities. Understanding how people perceive, trust, and interact with these technologies is therefore essential to ensuring they are used safely and appropriately. 

Project Goal and Plan

This project will develop and field a set of surveys designed to measure public knowledge of new vehicle technologies, assess how drivers interact with them, and capture their perceptions and trust toward these systems. The effort expands on a previous work by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in this domain. Findings from this project will help industry stakeholders and the public better understand how perceptions of these technologies are evolving, identify barriers to adoption, and inform future technology development in ways that advance safe and effective mobility for all road users. Additionally, information learned from this research could form the basis of a periodic (e.g., annual) survey effort to track knowledge, usage, and attitudes over time.