Autonomous driving levels and enablers Chapter | 17 195increased safety, ethic, and mobility issues such as reduced emissions and traf-
fic, set additional requirements for the new technology. At the same time, they
create new opportunities for autonomous vehicles to gain an advantage over
traditional manned vehicles.
There are some disruptive changes, which are necessary for the success of
autonomous vehicles. For example, the regulations and the legal framework are
still underdeveloped in most countries, including Europe and must be altered
in order to support the technological advancements. Another change that has to
be considered is the physical change of the driver, who no more acts during the
whole driving period. This introduces new parameters that must be considered.
Finally, the change in responsibility, which emerges from the driver that does not
decide in all cases but has to be alert and ready to undertake (CARTRE, 2018).
These disruptive changes bring a series of derived requirements, for a fail-safe
operational system, in-vehicle convenience, and improved driving experience,
performance, and safety, etc. Since safety is an enabler for autonomous driving, it
is important that it also considers the increased freedom of drivers. Safety regula-
tions and passenger safety tests must adapt to the autonomous driving scenario
and so must do the interior vehicle design (Büchsner & Reichenbach, 2019).
17.3 Research areas
One of the areas that still need further research for improving autonomous
driving and establishing higher autonomy levels is that of Human Factor and
more specifically, the driver–vehicle interface. At higher autonomy levels, it is
important to guarantee a safe transition between automated and nonautomated
vehicle operation and to provide as much information as possible to the driver
in order to support the safe operation of the vehicle. Research on the Human
Factor must evaluate more complex scenarios of interaction and examine differ-
ent driver reactions in emergencies in order to improve the safety and reliability
of the middle levels of autonomous driving. The focus of such scenarios must
be on the driver/vehicle interaction, the balance of labor and control author-
ity and the transfer of control between the driver and the vehicle. They should
also examine the acceptance of vehicle decisions by the driver and the training
requirements for the driver.Another thing that must be defined carefully is the
driver’s role and its interaction with the automated driving system (Banks &
Stanton, 2019). More specifically, the role of the driver in the transition between
driving modes, especially when changing between the “driver driving” and the
“driver not driving” modes has to be fully defined for every possible scenario,
in order to prevent mode confusion. The transfer of authority and responsibility
between the human driver and the system and the disengagements either manual
or automatic, along with the conditions they happened and the time required
to be accomplished are expected to give useful insights on human trust for the
autonomous driving technology and are still to be further studied (Dixit, Chand,
& Nair 2016).