Exploration of the acceptability of different behaviors of an autonomous vehicle in so-called conflict situations

•The driving mode of an autonomous vehicle has a significant effect on the passenger’s perceived acceptability of the vehicle.•The type of intersection in which an autonomous vehicle is located has no influence on the passenger’s perceived acceptability.•The emotional state of the passenger seems to be an interesting indicator of the acceptability of the behavior of an autonomous vehicle. The acceptability of autonomous vehicles is an important issue for car manufacturers. The subject of this work attempts to address this issue in the context of conflict situations in urban environments. We present the results of a preliminary study that was conducted to investigate the effects of the driving mode and context on the acceptability of the behavior of an autonomous vehicle. We thus measured acceptability on 30 drivers confronted with three driving modes (defensive, aggressive, and transgressive) as well as different situations constituted by the most common urban intersections in France. We then formulated hypotheses on the effects that the driving mode, the context, or the socio-demographic characteristics of the passengers may have on their acceptability of the autonomous vehicle behavior. In the context of our study, the driving mode of the vehicle was the most influential parameter on the level of acceptability assessed by the participants. The type of intersection used did not result in a significant difference, nor did the socio-demographic characteristics studied. The results of these works allow an interesting first approach and lead us to guide our future works on the study of the parameters involved in the driving modes of autonomous vehicles.