Abstract
Social interactions were always part of the driving task, but the introduction of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication opens up new possibilities for cooperative interactive driving. It enables drivers to coordinate their maneuvers cooperatively with other involved traffic users. To ensure drivers’ acceptance of such automated systems it is necessary to understand the underlying mechanisms of human cooperation in traffic. In this experiment, we investigate potential influencing factors on the willingness to behave cooperatively in a lane change situation on a highway. In a video-based study, we manipulated the costs of cooperation, the situation’s criticality for the lane-changing vehicle and the way in which the intention to change the lane was indicated. Cooperative behavior is influenced by lower costs, a higher situation’s criticality and by signaling the intention to lane change. These results offer insights that may be used in the developing process of Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for cooperatively interacting vehicles