HUMAN FACTORS PRESENTATION

SCRIPT

Good evening, everyone. My name is Brooklyn and we are part of the Human Factors
research group covering whether automated vehicles will make society better or worse. 

Human Factors is the branch of psychology which is concerned with the interactions of
Humans with technology (Wickens; Gordon; Liu (1997). The three main areas of Human
Factors include: 1 - how technology optimizes performance, by helping them complete tasks
more efficiently and accurately, 2 - how technology improves safety, by reducing errors, and
ensuring correct procedure is completed and 3 – how technology enhances the users
experience, related to the people’s subjective experience while using the technology.

Automated Vehicles (or AVs) are the technology relevant to this presentation. It is important
to understand the different classifications of AVs, and thus we will briefly explain the 6
different SAE (Society for Automotive Engineers) Levels. 

Level 0: manually controlled vehicles (the majority of which are on the road today). Level 1:
Driver assistance. Where a single Driver assistance system is implemented, such as
assisted steering or cruise control. Level 2: partial automation, where the vehicle controls
both steering and acceleration/deceleration. This is the Tesla autopilot classification. Level 3:
is Conditional automation: which is an automated driving system implemented which is able
to make informed decisions regarding the surrounding environment, but still require human
override if the car is unable to make correct decisions. Level 4: is High Automation, which is
an automated driving system with the ability to respond appropriately and make decisions
even if human intervention is not successful. And finally Level 5: Full automation, where no
human intervention is ever required (Inagaki, 2019)

Although road legal Automatic Vehicles have not developed past SAE level 2 (Knoop, 2019),
this presentation will refer to AVs of the higher-level capabilities of Automatic Vehicles. The
predicted development and even current state of this technology has sparked an interesting
controversy over whether the sustained use of AVs will improve or impair society. This
question is what we aim to investigate and answer throughout this presentation.  We will do
so by analysing the relative effect that Automated Vehicles have on each of the three main
areas of Human Factors.

Explanation of Lay Perceptions/Debate/Controversy

Much of the controversy that has arisen from the development of AVs consists of a number
of positive and negative societal consequences situated within each of the 3 areas of Human
Factors. We will explain the controversy situated with the optimisations of performance, the
improvement of safety and the enhancement of user experience concerned with Automatic
Vehicles.

Optimisation of Performance:

The use of Automatic Vehicles provides the potential to positively change economic
efficiency by altering current ownership models of vehicles, however controversy lies in the
unforeseen methods of use of the Automated Vehicles, and the uncertainty to whether they
will benefit or will be a detriment to the environment. 

A paper produced by Mourad et al. (2019) highlighted the increasing demand for
transportation, and the accompanying challenges (such as increased traffic congestion and
pollution and decrease in fuel supplies).  Within the paper they discussed two differing AV
ownership-models that are being considered for future autonomous vehicles, and the
hypothetical consequences that would come of each. They tested this using complex
algorithms which represented computational models. The models were based on 1) that AVs
would act essentially as a taxi-service that nobody owned, and everyone could use (Wallar
et al., 2017), and 2) private vehicle ownership, with the additional aspect of the owner
essentially renting their AV out to others, while they are not in need. The experiment
conducted, resulted in the consideration of the number and distance of shared trips, and the
evaluation of the potentially saved kilometres travelled within the vehicle. The experimenters
designed their method on an existing approach, which was the assessment of the potential
of pre-defined meeting points in a ride-sharing service (essentially Uber). As a result, a
method was developed for assessing the shared potential of vehicle kilometres saved of the
different variants. 

The results of this study showed that the first model (the on-demand model) performed
better than the model in which AVs had individual owners. This was demonstrated by the
first model receiving higher rider matching rates, fewer numbers of AVs required to satisfy
the demand of transport, more efficient distance rates and shorter travel times (Mourad,
2019). These results show that depending on which model manifests itself in the future, the
optimisation of performance will either help or hinder society with respect to economic
efficiency and by reducing harmful environmental outputs (reducing traffic, distances
travelled and the time it takes to do so), and thus lies the limitation of the study, as the
unpredictable nature of humans will decide on the outcome. 

A paper by Barth et al. (2014) builds upon the optimisation of performance of automated
vehicles, by discussing forms of automation which would smooth the flow of transport,
ultimately reducing traffic, and the time taken to arrive at a destination, similarly to Mourad et
al. (2019). These forms of automation include speed harmonization (all vehicles traveling at
the same speed), variable speed limits (in which a predefined speed control algorithm
controls the speed of the AV through different stretches of road) and intelligent speed
adaptation (a system which ensures the AV is traveling at the correct speed limit). All of
these factors would assist in reducing traffic congestion and other economic factors
discussed in the first paper. Barth et al. (2014) also emphasized how all of these automated
systems used in conjunction had the potential to provide significant energy and emissions
savings. However, it is difficult to predict the behavioural changes that will be produced from
the implementation of AVs, such as vehicle ownership mentioned in the previous study.
There is the potential for detriments to energy savings and emissions, depending on how
humans decide to utilize their technology. Therefore, future research should be conducted
once they are implemented, into the most efficient way to use AVs in efforts to optimize
performance of the economy and to benefit the environment simultaneously. However, AVs
do have a promising positive effect on the optimisation of performance. 
Improvement of Safety:

With regard to the improvement of safety, Automatic vehicles provide the potential decrease
of crash statistics, which saves lives and materials. However, there is speculation that the
increased use of AVs will result in the increased rate of cyberhacking, which could result in
jeopardization of passenger’s safety and the surrounding public. 

A paper produced by Schwall et al. (2020) aimed to provide more relevant and informative
data concerning the safety of the Waymo Driver (a fully automated driving system designed
by a company called WAYMO, whose primary focus is to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities
by increasing the number of high-level automatic classification AVs on public roads), in an
effort to increase public confidence about the predicted use of AVs in the future. 

The data was gathered by counterfactually simulating, (a what-if simulation), the

transpiration of events regarding the failed disengagement of the Waymo driver in critical
situations. Disengagement is when the driver will purposefully disengage the fully automated
driving system and take manual control, in order to avoid potential collisions. These
simulations are more effective than those created completely synthetically, as they use the
real events of the AV up until the disengagement. The simulation was used to demonstrate
the predicted vehicle response for a few seconds after the disengagement, and the result of
each simulation provides insight as to what may have happened if the operator had not
taken manual control (Schwall, 2020). 

The data provided from this paper represented over 9 million kilometres of automated driving
in cities in the states of Phoenix and Arizona in the US (Schwall, 2020). The data provided
from the study included every predicted collision & minor contact from the disengagement
simulation, as well as real-life collisions and minor contacts that came as a result of public
testing. In total, there were 18 actual contacts and 29 simulated contacts, none of which
would be expected to result in death or life-threatening injuries. With this information, it's
clear to see that the ratio of distance travelled, and potential crashes is very small. However,
this study highlights the fact that the majority of the critical events displayed were the fault of
other drivers' incautious behaviour on the road, and not the fault of the AV. This suggests
that a full integration of AVs may have the potential to completely eliminate collisions all
together. 

However, with the notion of relying on technology to safely pilot AVs with passengers inside,
there comes the threat of system failure, cyber hacking and the jeopardization of AV control. 

A paper by Gupta et al. (2020) reviewed and discussed the multitude of attacks and security
concerns related to the technology underpinning AVs. They discussed how trials of AVs
have faced many issues such as safety, privacy, and security. The paper provides examples
of such cyber-attacks, the first being attacks on authentication. Authentication means that
only those authorized can access data/information regarding the AV (Gupta, 2020). Attacks
of this kind can result in malicious transmission of fake messages to other AVs, resulting in
their making of incorrect decisions, posing danger to the passenger and the surrounding
environment. Additionally, GPS signals could be exposed, or even falsified (Gupta, 2020).
Before AVs are completely implemented into society, future research and design should
consider these faults, working on reducing or eliminating the potential for them to happen. 

Enhancement of User Performance:

The use of AVs has the potential to completely remove the concept of driving, allowing
people to complete other tasks during the journey, and even remove any original factors that
were required to drive in the first place, for example disabilities. The controversy arises when
we consider whether people will change their behaviour, and embrace and trust autonomous
vehicles, or if they will refuse to use them.

A study by Cordts et al. (2021) investigated the role of AVs in transportation accessibility for
those who have limited transport options, such as those with disabilities which inhibit them
from driving. The study used a survey with multiple choice and short answer questions to
gather data on issues with transportation experiences with the physically disabled. The
survey results illustrated the types of challenges the physically disabled experience (cost
time for planning, convenience of use), and demonstrated the overall positive attitude
exerted by the participants towards the notion of using AVs as a transportation method. The
results show that in the future, special consideration should be made for the design of AVs,
equipping them for a population that contains a number of people with physical disabilities, in
order to build trust and increase ease of transport for everyone (Cordts, 2021). 

A paper conducted by Molnar et al. (2018) had a primary research question which aimed to
investigate factors which were associated with the levels of trust of which people would exert
towards automated technology, with a specific interest in how trust contributed to
acceptance in a simulated driving environment. A driving simulation was employed, and data
was collected in an effort to deduce the levels of acceptance of automated technology.
Participants were subject to a driving simulation, in which they would either drive through a
virtual environment manually, or the automated controls would take over. After the
simulation, participants were subject to structured interviews, of which the measure of trust
was deduced from. The results showed that participants were shown to exhibit higher levels
of trust towards automated technology, especially after having to switch between the
automated and manual driving situations (Molnar, 2018). This shows promise for the levels
of trust for the future implementation of AVs, however it also highlighted that there may be a
certain predisposition for individuals who are used to being a passenger or who are more
familiar with technology to exert higher levels of trust (Molnar, 2018). Future research should
include these two variables into studies investigating levels of trust in AVs, in order to get a
more specific result of the population. 

Future Research

The majority of the studies mentioned have explored the impact of automation in the sense
of optimizing performance, improving safety and enhancing user experience. There is still a
great deal of research to be conducted in these areas, mentioned before, which will reduce
uncertainty for the future in automation and how it will benefit society in the near and distant
future. 

The economic, health and social scale of impact that automated cars would have on society
is lacking in the current literature. For instance, what would be the scale of jobs lost due to
the move to full vehicle automation (level 5)? Which sectors of the economy or countries will
be the most affected by this? If jobs disappear, what can be done to mitigate the effects?
The impact of public health is also an area that is in need of further research. Because of the
lower levels of physical activity that is induced by vehicle automation, obesity and diabetes
could be on the rise. Exploration of social impacts could lead to a better understanding of the
social implications of automated vehicles. Is there a likelihood that automated vehicles could
impact the ability of vulnerable social groups (e.g., people with physical, sensory, and mental
disabilities) to access economic and social opportunities? How will the benefits from vehicle
automation be distributed among different social groups? 
There have been methodological challenges that we have faced from reviewing the current
literature. One issue is the automation technology (level 3 and higher levels of automation) is
still in its infancy. Studies have mainly made use of traffic and driving simulations to explore
automated vehicles in the context of travel time, fuel efficiency, emissions and safety. As
technology evolves, more empirical studies will be conducted in this area of automation. An
expansion in the behavioural aspects focusing on vehicle ownership and sharing, as well as
social equity and public health, will need qualitative (focus groups/ interviews) and
quantitative methods (stated choice experiments) of studies conducted. These methods
(qualitative and quantitative) could explore the enhancement of user performance in the
sense of value of time while traveling and travel comfort. 

Conclusion

Vehicle automation will play a significant role in the near and distant future on how we
interact with reality. Over the course of this presentation, we have highlighted in the impacts
of Automated Vehicles on the 3 areas of human factors, and although it is clear to see a lot
of future research must be conducted before implementing AVs completely into society, the
benefits they will pose to society as a whole outweigh the negatives, answering the question
“will automated vehicles make society better or worse”. Thank you for your time.

References: 

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