Including people with impairments from the start: external communication of autonomous vehicles

People with impairments are among the most vulnerable road users in traffic with significantly higher risk of accidents. Upcoming autonomous vehicles are expected to reduce this but demand some form of external communication to be able to signal their intent or other information to pedestrians. Recent research around the design of vehicle-pedestrian communication focuses strongly on concepts for a non-disabled adult population (e.g. visual cues). This work conducted a current literature review of existing concepts (2014-2019) for vehicle-pedestrian communication (29 publications) and evaluated each according to guidelines of universal design and people with disabilities in mind. Our results uncover shortcomings of the proposed concepts (e.g. over 65% rely solely on visual feedback) and combine these insights with a first impressions of those affected (interview with two visually impaired users).