It's all a matter of trust: Do passengers trust an automated vehicle or a  human driver more after a dangerous situation?

The first self-driving taxi was launched in 2016 in Singapore. Since then, more cities around the world have introduced automated taxis. Past studies have identified trust as an important component to ensure users' safety when interacting with automated vehicles and benefitting from the available technology. Nonetheless, automated systems are not failure-proof and can result in fatal accidents. The concept of trust in automation is related to interpersonal trust: A trustor puts themselves at risk by expecting a certain outcome. Therefore, we conducted a driving simulator study at Leiden University to investigate the development of trust in automation compared to interpersonal trust after experiencing a system malfunction. We tested 41 participants and divided them into two groups. Participants were either passengers in a conventional taxi or in an automated vehicle. During the simulated drive, participants rated their trust verbally on a 7-point Likert scale. Additionally, trust in...Show moreThe first self-driving taxi was launched in 2016 in Singapore. Since then, more cities around the world have introduced automated taxis. Past studies have identified trust as an important component to ensure users' safety when interacting with automated vehicles and benefitting from the available technology. Nonetheless, automated systems are not failure-proof and can result in fatal accidents. The concept of trust in automation is related to interpersonal trust: A trustor puts themselves at risk by expecting a certain outcome. Therefore, we conducted a driving simulator study at Leiden University to investigate the development of trust in automation compared to interpersonal trust after experiencing a system malfunction. We tested 41 participants and divided them into two groups. Participants were either passengers in a conventional taxi or in an automated vehicle. During the simulated drive, participants rated their trust verbally on a 7-point Likert scale. Additionally, trust in automation or a taxi driver was assessed through a questionnaire before and after the experiment. Our results showed that the development of trust did not differ between the groups during the drive. We observed a temporary decrease in trust after the taxi ran a red light, but trust recovered at the end of the drive. Trust in a human driver was higher than in a self-driving car before the simulation but did not differ anymore at the end of the experiment. This suggests that trust in automation develops the same as interpersonal trust after experiencing a dangerous situation.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

It's all a matter of trust: Do passengers trust an automated vehicle or a human driver more after a dangerous situation?