Investigation of Cooperative Driving Behaviour during Lane Change in a Multi-Driver Simulation Environment

Abstract

Thanks to significant progress in communication technology, advanced driver assistance and automation systems (ADAS) provide the opportunity to exchange information for performing cooperative manoeuvres where each communication partner adjust its behaviour, for example to optimize the energy consumption and the safety of a group of vehicles. One such example is a cooperative lane change assistant (C-LCA) to be developed within the ARTEMIS project “D3CoS” (Designing Dynamic Distributed Cooperative Systems). The C-LCA aims at reducing possible conflicts on motorways between a lane changing vehicle and oncoming vehicles on the target lane by coordinating their behaviour in order to achieve a maximum of safety and a minimum of energy consumption. An essential prerequisite for such a system to be effective is detailed knowledge about cooperation behaviour of drivers during such manoeuvres. In a driving simulator study in a multi-driver simulation environment at DLR, cooperation behaviour of drivers under different situational conditions, such as availability of lanes or criticality of the situation, was investigated. Results indicate that drivers consider other drivers’ available actions when requesting cooperation behaviour, and that the willingness to cooperate depends on the ability to anticipate other drivers’ behaviour. These results will be used to develop an effective C-LCA.