How Cyclists’ Body Posture Can Support a Cooperative Interaction in Automated Driving

Automated driving is continuously evolving and will be integrated more and more into urban traffic in the future. Since urban traffic is characterized by a high number of space-sharing conflicts, the issue of an appropriate interaction with other road users, especially with pedestrians and cyclists, becomes increasingly important. This chapter provides an overview of the research project “KIRa” (Cooperative Interaction with Cyclists in automated Driving), which investigated the interaction between automated vehicles and cyclists according to four project aims. First, the investigation of body posture as a predictor of the cyclists’ starting process. Second, the development of a VR cycling simulation and validation in terms of perceived criticality and experience of presence. Third, the experimental evaluation of a drift-diffusion model for vehicle deceleration detection. And fourth, the investigation of factors affecting cyclists’ gap acceptance. With these research aims, it was the project’s intention to contribute to a better understanding of the cyclists’ perception of communication signals and to improve the ability of automated vehicles to predict cyclists’ intentions. The results can provide an important contribution to the cooperative design of the interaction between automated vehicles and cyclists.