Safety First? V2X – Percived Benefits, Barriers and Trade-offs of Automated Driving Teresa Schmidt, Ralf Philipsen and Martina Ziefle Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University, Campus-Boulevard 57, 52074, Aachen, Germany Keywords: Mobility, V2X-communication, Intelligent Transportation System. Abstract: Today, we are on the edge of increasing population and urbanization with an increasing portion of older people. These far-reaching societal developments necessitate novel mobility infrastructure concepts, in which a diverse population and a higher population density are considered. Safety in traffic situations is one of the most important and needs to be taken into account. A highly potent approach is to combine in-vehicle systems and vehicle sensors. Whereby the public perception and user acceptance of V2X-technology in general is insufficiently explored. Using a two-tier approach, in which both qualitative and quantitative data are combined, this research gains insights into human perceptions of V2X-technology, plausible trade-offs and basic fears. Results show safety as an important factor which should be included in further future research. 1 INTRODUCTION No matter if you travel by your personal car, use public transport or car sharing, all of the different mobility options share the necessity of an efficient transport infrastructure. With an increasing older population (United Nations, 2012), new concepts for mobility are needed. The quality, flexibility and adaptability of mobility concepts are crucial cornerstones for technology-developed societies (Dickerson et al., 2007, Schmidt et al., 2015, Ziefle et al., 2014). A promising way to improve today’s traffic and transport infrastructure is to integrate technical solutions in form of a combination of in- vehicle systems and vehicle sensors. The technical solutions aim a more efficient and safer transport system by offering drivers a more detailed view of prevailing traffic situations (EU, 2006, van Driel 2007). Another technical solution refers to the connection of transportation means, namely V2X, specifically Car2X-communication. The exchange of information on the technical level between different road users, such as cars, signal systems or intelligent sensor technology in the road surface creates a cooperative environment, in which an assessment of the current traffic situation can be based on more information than there would be available for a single, isolated traffic participant (Endsley and Garland, 2000, Picone et al., 2015). Recent research in Car2X-technologies is concerned with predominately technical infra-structure, e.g. the development of networks for V2X-traffic management (Ardelt et al., 2012, Wedel et al., 2009, Trivisonno et al., 2015), standardization issues for V2X usage across European countries (Weiß, 2011), cooperative driving (Kato et al., 2002, Costeseque et al., 2015) or technical privacy matters (Ma et al., 2009, Lefevre et al., 2013). When looking at the driver and its changed role within novel V2X traffic situations, the situation awareness and information requirements (Endsley and Rodgers, 1994, Schmidt et al., 2015), drivers’ behavior in using automated cars (Merat et al., 2009, 2012) and usability issues in in-vehicle systems were studied. While the importance of the close interplay of social behaviors of drivers and the successful integration of Car2X-technologies into holistic mobility concepts is increasingly gaining attention (Rakotonirainy et al., 2014, simTD, 2013). As such, users’ acceptance of V2X-technology is insufficiently explored. Little is known about the perceived usefulness and the willingness to share information within transport systems or networks as well as the general acceptance of passing over the control to the car in different usage scenarios, especially when the use case requires a higher degree of automation. In this context, there might be substantial acceptance concerns: both the possible withdrawal 39 Schmidt T., Philipsen R. and Ziefle M.. Safety First? - V2X – Percived Benefits, Barriers and Trade-offs of Automated Driving. DOI: 10.5220/0005487800390046 In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Vehicle Technology and Intelligent Transport Systems (VEHITS-2015), pages 39-46 ISBN: 978-989-758-109-0 Copyright c  2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)