Driving Together Across Vehicle: Effects of Driver/Co-Driver Pairs

Most research on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is technology-driven, or focused on driver-to-driver interaction. Social communication between drivers and passengers across vehicles, with the same destination, is often neglected. Communication is influenced by context and occupant behavior, and has a significant effect on the collaborative driving scenario. An exploratory in-situ study with seven groups of two driver/co-driver pairs each, located in two separate vehicles, was conducted. On a predefined route, different subtasks had to be solved in a collaborative way. The study revealed a significant influence of different social factors, such as driving behavior, and contextual factors such as weather conditions, or vehicle shape and size. Findings delivered important insights and a deeper understanding on collaborative driving that may influence future V2V communication technologies. Additionally, the collaborative driving behavior of the driver/co-driver pairs could be transferred to a multi-agent framework.