Pedestrian-Vehicle Interaction in Shared Space: Insights for Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

Shared space reduces segregation between vehicles and pedestrians and encourages them to share roads without imposed traffic rules. The behaviour of road users (RUs) is then controlled by social norms, and interactions are more versatile than on traditional roads. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will need to adapt to these norms to become socially acceptable RUs in shared spaces. However, to date, there is not much research into pedestrian-vehicle interaction in shared-space environments, and prior efforts have predominantly focused on traditional roads and crossing scenarios. We present a video observation investigating pedestrian reactions to a small, automation-capable vehicle driven manually in shared spaces based on a long-term naturalistic driving dataset. We report various pedestrian reactions (from movement adjustment to prosocial behaviour) and situations pertinent to shared spaces at this early stage. Insights drawn can serve as a foundation to support future AVs navigating shared spaces, especially those with a high pedestrian focus.

References in corpus (2)

• How Can Autonomous Vehicles Convey Emotions to Pedestrians? A Review of Emotionally Expressive Non-Humanoid Robots
• Designing Interactions With Shared AVs in Complex Urban Mobility Scenarios

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Exploring the Impact of Interconnected External Interfaces in Autonomous Vehicleson Pedestrian Safety and Experience
• From Passersby to Placemaking: Designing Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Encounters for an Urban Shared Space
• Virtual Urban Field Studies: Evaluating Urban Interaction Design Using Context-Based Interface Prototypes
• Robots in the Wild: Contextually-Adaptive Human-Robot Interactions in Urban Public Environments
• Understanding Pedestrian Gesture Misrecognition: Insights from Vision-Language Model Reasoning