D4.1 Scenarios and experimental protocols

Disclaimer: This deliverable has not yet been reviewed by the European Commission.

The aim of the PAsCAL project, funded under the "Horizon 2020" Research and Innovation program, is to improve the understanding of the implications of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) on society. The project will create a "Guide2Autonomy" to capture this new knowledge. Outcomes from the project will contribute to the training of future drivers and passengers and will help decision-makers to move towards the new forms of individual and collective mobility made possible by the spread of driverless cars.

During the PAsCAL project, the perceptions and expectations of citizens regarding the new autonomous and connected driving technologies will be examined, trying to better understand their fears and concerns and to help to prepare solutions that will be able to bridge the anticipated emotional and cultural gaps. If these are not tackled, the barriers to adoption, inherent in the world of CAVs, may not be removed.

Likewise, the behaviour of drivers in semi-autonomous vehicles and that of all other road users will be studied, again to identify the main obstacles that will need to be removed in order to make man-machine interaction commonplace, whilst being as safe as possible.

To these purposes, specific surveys have been prepared in WP3 and accurate behavioural analyses are carried out in WP4 with extensive use of modern technologies, such as driving simulators and virtual reality platforms.

The results of the simulation experiments will provide a better understanding of the reasons for the distrust towards CAVs expressed by many European citizens. They will describe reactions and behaviours in situations that are still completely new and yet to be determined. They will allow useful conclusions to be drawn in terms of vehicle design, humanmachine interface layout, and the more holistic organization of the transport system.

All of this new knowledge will be incorporated into the "Guide2Autonomy" which will be made available to all relevant stakeholders. Specific anticipated items for inclusion will be how best to train CAV users (the current "drivers"), the necessary certifications that must be obtained and any new traffic rules to be adopted. It is hoped that all of this will assist with a smooth transition to wide-scale CAV adoption.

A specific focus, as part of the PAsCAL project, will be reserved for people who are currently unable to drive traditional vehicles; Blind or partially sighted citizens are a specific case considered by the project. For these road users, connected autonomous driving offers numerous advantages in terms of freedom of movement and increased personal autonomy.

In addition to the behavioural surveys and virtual journey experiences conducted using simulators, PAsCAL will finally create 5 road-transport pilot projects, conducted in different countries of the European Union. The pilot projects will focus respectively on: autonomous high-capacity buses; user training through driving schools and driving academies; different types of connected shared vehicles; autonomous bus lines and, last but not least, applications that allow people with disabilities to travel, thanks to new autonomous driving technologies within a transport network.

The current document presents the simulation scenarios and the corresponding experimental protocols that define the 5 experiments WP4 is made of. From their initial design to the details of their implementation.

The common background is presented in chapter 2, including the positioning of WP4 within the PAsCAL project, a recall of the WP4 objectives, the presentation of the simulators involved then how the research questions and the scenarios were imagined then chosen.

Much more details about the scenarios development and the experimental protocols (scientific definition, recruitment of the subjects, technical information about the simulation systems, measurement tools including questionnaires…) for each of the 5 experiments are exposed in chapter 3.

Additional information about deviations and references are provided in chapters 4 and 5.