Planning and Policy for Safer Roads with Autonomous Vehicles: Decision Making Behavior in Dilemma-inducing Situations - Phase II

Despite the advances made in the technical availability of autonomous vehicles (AVs) for road tests and even limited commercial mobility services, a critical challenge in the integration of AVs into the real-world transportation systems and our lives is establishing safety and ethical regulations. In particular, principles are required for an AV to make safe and ethical decisions in high-impact low-frequency situations that induce dilemmas, such as whether to hit pedestrians to spare passengers onboard? The absence of such policies can concern the potential users about safety aspects of AVs, which is identified to negatively affect the public acceptance of the AV technology, as highlighted by the findings of the PI’s previous research. This project is focused on designing these policies derived from the research on the potential autonomous system users’ expectations and perception of a safe AV through exploring how the users themselves would make decisions that entail a dilemma-inducing situation. This project will be the second Phase of the ongoing project from the previous year. In particular, this proposed work will be built on and complement the first Phase through accomplishing three tasks explained below. Task 1 - Launching Stated Preferences (S.P.) Survey to Collect Sample Datasets on Two Groups of Individuals. The S.P. survey is designed in Phase I using experimental design methods which is demonstrated to be a rigorous and efficient tool for collecting datasets on individual persons’ opinions and preferences. In Phase II, the results of the pilot dataset collected in Phase 1 will be utilized for updating the survey. Then, the survey will be fully launched on two population groups with distinctive heterogenous attitudes. The PI has the experience of designing and dissemination S.P. surveys in a different context. Task 2 - Estimating Modeling Frameworks Capturing Heterogeneity of Behavior on the Datasets Collected in Task 1. This task focuses on estimating methods developed in Phase I which are built on behavioral economics, mathematical psychology, and cognitive science. These methods are capable of capturing morality dimension of decisions as well as the heterogenous behavior of individual persons. One of such methods is choice theory-based model of latent class choice, which is capable of capturing “reason-based” morality and at the same time endogenously classifies persons into groups to be homogenous with respect to attitudes within the groups and heterogenous across the groups. The PI has the experience of developing and estimating such models in different contexts. The models are then empirically estimated on the datasets collected in Task 1. Task 3 - Integrating Research into Teaching. The research findings from Tasks 1 and 2 will be presented to the students of the course on Transportation Engineering. The purpose is familiarizing undergraduate students with advanced research topics through presenting the findings of this study. This will then be followed by a discussion session by groups of students who will be sharing their ideas and discussion results to all their peers.

• Record URL:
  • https://ppms.cit.cmu.edu/projects/detail/620

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $78,847.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552344811

  69A3552348316

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Safety21 University Transportation Center

  Carnegie Mellon University
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Pittsburgh, PA  United States 
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

  1201 W. University Dr
  Edinburg, TX  United States  78539
• Principal Investigators:

  Nazari, Fatemeh

• Start Date: 20250701
• Expected Completion Date: 20260831
• Actual Completion Date: 20260831
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Behavior; Consumer preferences; Decision making; Human factors; Vehicle safety
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 02002863
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Safety21 University Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552344811, 69A3552348316
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Sep 18 2026 10:04AM