Abstract

The foreseeable advent of conditionally automated cars (CAC) at SAE Level 3 opens up a multitude of questions that have to be addressed for a safe adoption of the new vehicle technology. To explore the opinions of other road users affected and especially of the vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – on CACs, a population survey of road users was conducted in the EU member states France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden as well as in Australia and in the USA within the EU-funded project BRAVE. On the basis of 6,608 survey data sets, the study provides reliable findings on acceptance and trust in CACs from a road user’ perspective, on the use of external human-machine interfaces (HMI) as well as on ethical and legal considerations. The road users’ acceptance of CACs appears to be rather positive in principle but varies between the road user groups. At the same time, doubts in trust in CACs from the perspective of the studied groups of road users are identified. Different opinions on ethical and legal issues arise which vary also according to the respondents’ country of residence.