17 | Observing passenger behaviour and motion sickness development in autonomous vehicles – A driving study on public roads

The introduction of automated vehicles (AV) enables passengers to engage in non-driving related tasks (NDRT), increasing the risk of motion sickness. Surveys have been conducted to determine the engagement in NDRTs. It is assumed that answers regarding the engagement of NDRTS in AVs were mostly derived from the passengers’ experience in manually driven vehicles, since the availability of highly automated vehicles is limited. The presented study is the first to observe passenger rides in highly automated vehicles, wherein participants could freely choose their activities. An initial survey (N = 611) was initiated to illuminate potential elements influencing the user dissatisfaction with AVs and the relevance of a driving study in AVs on public roads. In this survey, 52% of the respondents reported avoiding NDRTs to prevent MS. The driving study was conducted in Wolfsburg, Germany with 44 participants. Out of all trips, 10 (~22%) were terminated early because the termination criterion MISC = 6 was reached. In 89% of the trips, a tablet or smartphone was used at least once, while in 41% of the rides, a book was read at least once. In a post questionnaire, 86% of these participants stated that their conducted activity was reading at some point during the study, followed by texting (57%). Comparing the frequency of activities, reading was reported similarly often between the survey (86%) and on the road (84%). The frequency of all other activities showed discrepancies between the online responses and observed behavior, highlighting the need for further field research.