The Exploration of Autonomous Vehicle Driving Styles: Preferred Longitudinal, Lateral, and Vertical Accelerations

This paper describes a new approach in exploring preferred driving styles for autonomous vehicles through simulation of autonomous driving in real road conditions. A Wizard experiment with an equipped car was conducted to investigate the preferences of people with different driving styles, assertive and defensive, for three autonomous vehicle driving styles (defensive, assertive and light rail transit), inducing different acceleration forces, at three different road profiles. Subjective and objective measurements were collected. The results show that the defensive driving style was preferred and there were variations between participants related to their own driving style. The results indicate that the preferences of assertive drivers for the driving style of an autonomous vehicle may not match their own driving style. Yet, users of future autonomous vehicles should be able to indicate and adjust the driving behaviour of an autonomous vehicle to their own preferences in order to maximize comfort in travelling experience.