Highly automated driving promises more safety and a variety of new mobility options for otherwise excluded mobility participants, such as elderly people with motor or cognitive impairments or physically impaired people. Stress while driving could also be reduced and more meaningful activities could be performed while driving. It is predicted that automated vehicles will have a dominant market share by 2050. However, the uptake of automated driving vehicles in today’s automotive markets has been slower than most expected. Therefore, the European Partnership for Cooperative and Connected Automated Mobility (CCAM) stresses the importance of demonstrating the benefits of automated driving to the public in its research strategy. User acceptance is crucial in this case.

A central question here is how automated vehicles can support mobility needs and lead to higher market penetration. To this end, the European research project HADRIAN is investigating the impact of extending driving automation systems (DAS) beyond the vehicle to road infrastructure elements as well as the human driver. A common and logical starting point for the development of DAS today is the vehicle itself, as this has long been the focus of vehicle manufacturers and suppliers.
The HADRIAN project investigated whether the DAS could be reliably extended with road infrastructure information and whether more continuous and predictable automated driving would bring measuable benefits to drivers and increase their acceptance. In addition, the HADRIAN project used fluent human-system integration to investigate how to adapt to drivers’ mobility needs and level of knowledge in order to optimally support them in using the automated driving system. Finally, the project investigated to what extent drivers can benefit from a gradual introduction to the DAS through multimedia introduction and feedback on the use in the vehicle.

Over the past three and a half years, the sixteen partners in the EU project have investigated solutions to expand the scope of automated vehicles, conducted research with well over 800 participants and demonstrated the solutions on test tracks and open roads. The combined research results indicate that the HADRIAN innovations were found to increase user acceptance by up to 60 % and perceived safety by up to 50 % when tested in real vehicles.

Find out more about the results at https://hadrianproject.eu/