Introducing a road interaction-focused approach towards autonomous driving cargo bikes as a new urban mobility offer

The project AuRa (autonomes Rad, engl. autonomous bicycle) is motivated by the real-world problem of availability and accessibility of bicycles in bike-sharing schemes in urban environments. Autonomous driving offers completely new possibilities to overcome it. With autonomous cargo-bikes as an efficient and ecological mobility solution, we can take a big step towards mobility transition. However, one of the major challenges they will be facing is the ability to interact with other road users as the most vulnerable - pedestrians. Yet, especially in terms of bikes, few studies investigated the timely topic of interaction concepts for autonomous vehicles. With our research in progress, we aim to contribute to research on the interaction of humans and autonomous cargo-bikes and gain findings helpings us design a communication interface for the autonomous bike. To this end, we designed a road interaction-focused approach involving three scientific sections: computer science, design engineering, and environmental psychology. This paper is introducing the overall interdisciplinary approach design including a series of studies for developing an interaction concept via visual and auditive signaling for the autonomous bike. It presents the current research state and some first findings of the research practice.