Game Theoretic Analysis of Road User Safety Scenarios Involving Autonomous Vehicles

Interactions between pedestrians, cyclists, and human-driven vehicles have become a major concern for traffic safety over the years. The upcoming age of autonomous vehicles will further raise major problems on whether self-driving cars can accurately avoid accidents; on the other hand, usability issues arise on whether human-driven cars and pedestrians can dominate the road at the expense of the autonomous vehicles that will be programmed to avoid accidents. This paper proposes some game theoretical models applied to traffic scenarios, where the strategic interaction between a pedestrian and an autonomous vehicle is analyzed. The games have been simulated to demonstrate the theoretical analysis and the predicted behaviors. These investigations can shed new lights on how urban traffic regulations and inter-vehicle communications could be required to allow for a general improved management of traffic in the presence of autonomous vehicles.