Center for Psychological Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, PR China.
School of Information Engineering, Chang'an University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710064, PR China.
Accid Anal Prev. 2021 Oct;161:106383. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2021.106383. Epub 2021 Aug 29.
We are entering an era of automated vehicles (AVs), which has potential to improve road safety considerably. A compelling user experience is crucial to AV adoption in the future commercial market. The automated driving system (ADS) that replaces human drivers should be perceived as very useful before the latter are willing to give up their control and entrust their lives to the ADS. However, compared with the growing number of studies on public acceptance of AVs, there has been limited research focusing on user experience and usability. We examined AV and ADS user experience and usability, ADS failures' influence on them, and their influences on re-riding willingness. We conducted a field study using a real AV and a large-scale test track. We invited participants (N = 261) to travel in the AV as passengers in a low-speed environment. Participants were randomly assigned into the normal condition or the fault condition (its participants were exposed to an ADS failure). We measured participants' positive experience (feeling relaxed, safe, and comfortable) and negative experience (feeling tense and risky) while riding in the AV and perceived usability of the ADS based on the System Usability Scale. In both conditions, participants reported moderate positive experience and perceived usability but a relatively high level of willingness to ride in our AV again. The ADS failure reduced positive experience and perceived usability, and it increased negative experience. Positive experience and perceived usability, but not negative experience, influenced re-riding willingness. Compared with male participants, female participants reported less positive experience and lower perceived usability. We discuss implications of our results as well as limitations of this research.
我们正在进入自动驾驶汽车（AV）的时代，这有潜力极大地提高道路安全。在未来的商业市场中，引人入胜的用户体验对于自动驾驶汽车的采用至关重要。取代人类驾驶员的自动驾驶系统（ADS）应该在后者愿意放弃控制权并将其生命托付给 ADS 之前被认为是非常有用的。然而，与越来越多的关于公众对自动驾驶汽车接受度的研究相比，关注用户体验和可用性的研究相对较少。我们研究了自动驾驶汽车和 ADS 的用户体验和可用性、ADS 故障对它们的影响，以及它们对再次乘车意愿的影响。我们使用真实的自动驾驶汽车和大型测试轨道进行了现场研究。我们邀请了 261 名参与者作为乘客在低速环境中乘坐自动驾驶汽车。参与者被随机分配到正常条件或故障条件（其参与者暴露于 ADS 故障）下。我们根据系统可用性量表衡量了参与者在乘坐自动驾驶汽车时的积极体验（感到放松、安全和舒适）和消极体验（感到紧张和有风险），以及对 ADS 的可用性感知。在两种情况下，参与者报告了中等程度的积极体验和可感知的可用性，但再次乘坐我们的自动驾驶汽车的意愿相对较高。ADS 故障降低了积极体验和可感知的可用性，并增加了消极体验。积极体验和可感知的可用性，但不是消极体验，影响了再次乘车的意愿。与男性参与者相比，女性参与者报告的积极体验较少，感知可用性较低。我们讨论了我们研究结果的意义以及这项研究的局限性。
