Toward developing socially compliant automated vehicles: Advances, expert insights, and a conceptual framework

By improving road safety, traffic efficiency, and overall mobility, automated vehicles (AVs) hold promise for revolutionizing transportation. Despite the steady advancement in high-level AVs in recent years, the transition to full automation entails a period of mixed traffic, where AVs of varying automation levels coexist with human-driven vehicles (HDVs). Making AVs socially compliant and understood by human drivers is expected to improve the safety and efficiency of mixed traffic. Thus, ensuring AVs’ compatibility with HDVs and social acceptance is crucial for their successful and seamless integration into mixed traffic. However, research in this critical area of developing socially compliant AVs (SCAVs) remains sparse. This study carries out the first comprehensive scoping review to assess the current state of the art in developing SCAVs, identifying key concepts, methodological approaches, and research gaps. An informal expert interview was also conducted to discuss the literature review results and identify critical research gaps and expectations toward SCAVs. On the basis of the scoping review and expert interview input, a conceptual framework is proposed for the development of SCAVs. The conceptual framework is evaluated via an online survey targeting researchers, technicians, policymakers, and other relevant professionals worldwide. The survey results provide valuable validation and insights, affirming the importance of the proposed conceptual framework in tackling the challenges of integrating AVs into mixed-traffic environments. Additionally, future research perspectives and suggestions are discussed, contributing to the research and development agenda of SCAVs.