When we talk about autonomous car and the modes it should possess most people think about full autonomous driving or manual driving. In manual driving we have a variety of drivers who can take you from place A to place B with different travel times. The driver with much faster speed and very less travel time might do sharp maneuvering with a aggressive driving pattern. On the contrary the other driver will drive relatively slow with normal travel time. These driving behaviour especially when talked about in terms of autonomous driving behaviour needs to be addressed on some sound basis.
One of the perspective towards building an autonomous car is that “not to build an autonomous car but to build a perfect driver”. Going forward with companies planning for SAE Level 4+ Autonomy, we must understand that the autonomous car itself must not just have two modes (Autonomous and Manual mode) but different modes that associate it with different travel times. These travel time differences can correlate to:
- Different risk factor.
- Cost/ plan of subscription.
- Passenger tastes.
- Real-time traffic scenarios. Etc.
Different Risk Factor: it can happen in cities that if you’re maneuvering at high speeds, you can reduce the travel times, but it might also compromise with the safety factor associated to it. One simple example can be the sampling rate of the sensor, if the sampling rate is fixed and the speed of the car increases the error for that particular sampled time. This behavior associates safety of passengers with the choice of driving pattern. It lets driver choose the safety level and opt for the type of aggressive driving pattern.
Cost/Plan of Subscription: The cost of annual/ monthly subscription plans. Companies can also provide this driving behavior/driving mode at increased cost. Linking the travel times to a business model.
Passenger Taste’s: The passenger select the driving behavior based on its own tastes. In this case the safety of the passenger might not be compromised.
Real-time Traffic Scenarios: Based on real time traffic the car itself changes the modes, the cars are going to be connected so the car knows when the traffic light will be green, the car adjusts the speed and driving behavior in order to reduce the Total Trip times.
All these options can be basis on which the driving behavior of an autonomous vehicle can be based on. The complexity of the environment and classifying the nature of passengers itself is so difficult that it’s for sure that fully driving car itself is not going to make every one happy.
