Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being developed as an alternative to conventional transportation, which comes with great timing as there is a global shortage of skilled commercial drivers. However, the complexity of the driving task is extremely difficult for an AI system to solve, meaning that SAE level 5 vehicles are quite far away. During this interim period where we will have public roads with mixed traffic, remote operation could be a solution for facilitating the introduction of AVs. 

As a remote operation station will be more similar to a simulator environment compared to a conventional cab, there might be a broader base for future recruitment of operators compared to drivers. This paper consists of subjective ratings from two simulator studies, comparing the performance of experienced drivers and experienced video gamers. Here we present the perceived performance and comfort of the simulator experiments, while comparing the groups in different conditions to see if one has an advantage over the other as potential employees.

Method: Thirty-one participants drove in simulated rural (high-speed) and urban (low-speed) scenarios. Five hazards were created for each scenario and the participants drove each scenario three times with different latencies (baseline, +100 ms, and +200 ms). The latency condition was masked for the participants. The hazards were designed with the intention of creating challenging traffic situations. For example, in hazard one (H1) a car parked next to the road activates their turn indicators and then cuts into the participant's lane close in front of the ego vehicle, forcing the participant to either brake or veer. Latency, type of hazard, and scenarios (high- and low-speed) were all within participants’ variables.

Objective simulator data collected included variables such as reaction time, post-encroachment time, speed variation, distance to hazard, collisions, etc. Subjective data was gathered through questionnaires between each of the balanced latency conditions to assess trust, perceived control, realism of scenarios, and workload etc. After the completed drive, participants were asked to rate in which order they believed they had been subjected to the different latencies. The participants were divided into two groups, experienced drivers and experienced gamers.

Conclusion: There seems to be a certain level of adaptivity among the participants, although they were not told that the latency varied between scenarios, and they could also not guess in which order they drove with the different conditions. In some situations, they drove with larger safety margins, especially experienced gamers in the high-speed scenario. Moreover, the subjective ratings show that participants felt less in control of the vehicle at higher latencies without being able to pinpoint what it was that affected their driving.

One2Many, the title of this report, refers to remote operation of vehicles where an operator handles several vehicles simultaneously. This may increase efficiency and opportunities for profitability. The objective of this report is to identify essential and relevant developments of the regulatory framework, as well as business models and working conditions for support of safe and sustainable introduction of a single person’s remote operation of multiple vehicles. 

As a starting point, this report describes the taxonomy used and a state-of-the-art study. Most literature deals with technical challenges around remote operation while non-technical challenges, as well operation of multiple vehicles, are poorly covered. This report aims at addressing this gap by considering non-technical aspects for remote operation. 

Legal aspects are described and analysed, resulting in recommendations for next steps for legislation and regulation. Furthermore, business models and working environment are discussed, taking advantage of two real world use cases: goods transport (Einride trucks), and public transportation (Ride the Future automated shuttles). 

One2Many summarises regulatory considerations in a Memorandum, and additionally concludes that: 

• Research is needed regarding legal challenges for the three different modes of remote operation (remote driving, remote assistance, remote supervision) and how to address them in future regulation to best deal with safety concerns and to support remote operation. Liability issues and concerns also need to be handled. 

• The main advantage of introducing remote operating for several vehicles per operator will most likely be uptime. The employee cost is foreseen to decrease, but potential surrounding functions need to be studied in order to determine if the cost of personnel actually would go down. 

• Several working environment considerations should be further discussed, e.g. regarding what type of controls would be most effective and safe to use, and whether it matters if an operator has a background as driver of conventional vehicles.

Föreliggande rapports titel, One2Many, syftar på fjärrstyrning av fordon där en operatör hanterar flera fordon samtidigt. Detta kan öka effektiviteten och möjligheterna till lönsamhet. Projektets syfte är att identifiera väsentliga och relevanta utvecklingar av regelverket, såväl som affärsmodeller och arbetsförhållanden för att stödja säker och hållbar introduktion av en enda persons fjärrstyrning av flera fordon. 

I avsaknad av etablerad taxonomi för styrning identifieras begreppet ”Remote operation” (fjärrstyrning) och dess tre moder: remote driving, assistance och supervision (fjärrkörning, fjärrassistans, fjärrövervakning). En nulägesbekrivning (state of the art) visar att den mesta litteraturen och de flesta initiativ inom industri och forskning behandlar tekniska utmaningar kring fjärrstyrning. Icke tekniska utmaningar, liksom samtidig styrning av flera fordon, täcks i betydligt mindre grad. Rapporten adresserar denna lucka genom att beakta icke-tekniska aspekter för fjärrstyrning. 

Juridiska frågeställningar beskrivs och analyseras, och leder fram till rekommendationer för hur lagstiftning och reglering behöver utvecklas. Vidare diskuteras affärsmodeller och arbetsmiljö utifrån två fall med automatiserade fordon i verkliga miljöer: godstransport (Einride-lastbilar) och kollektivtrafik (Ride the Future automatiserade skyttlar). 

One2Many sammanfattar regulatoriska överväganden i ett memorandum och drar dessutom slutsatserna att: 

• Det är nödvändigt med forskning som behandlar de juridiska utmaningarna för de tre olika fjärrstyrningsmoderna och deras framtida reglering för att på bästa sätt hantera säkerhetsproblem och för att stödja fjärrstyrning. Ansvarsfrågor och problem måste också behandlas. 

• Den största fördelen med att införa fjärrstyrning för flera fordon per operatör kommer med största sannolikhet att vara ”up-time”. Personalkostnaden förväntas minska, men operationernas kringaktiviteter och -funktioner måste studeras för att avgöra om personalkostnaderna faktiskt skulle minska. 

• Flera arbetsmiljöaspekter bör diskuteras vidare, till exempel om vilken typ av kontroller som skulle vara mest effektiva och säkra att använda, och om det spelar någon roll om en operatör har en bakgrund som förare av konventionella fordon, eller inte.

This report presents experimental setups and findings from the REDO project, which had been conducted between December 2019 and February 2023. Five main topics are covered in this report: 1) Effects of latency and field-of-view on driving performance; 2) Remote driving feedback and control; 3) Connectivity and mobile network support for remote driving; 4) Video transmission for remote driving; and 5) Laws and regulations concerning remote driving. Contents of this report dives into technical details and findings within each topic. Nevertheless, this report does not intend to repeat all detail and results published in scientific publications, and thus this report should be seen as complementary material to the published results.

Denna rapport presenterar studier och experiment inom REDO-projektet samt resultat ifrån dessa. Studierna är utförda mellan december 2019 och februari 2023 och rapporten täcker fem huvudämnen: 1) den effektlatens och siktvinkel har på körprestanda; 2) feedback och kontroll vid fjärrkörning; 3) uppkoppling samt mobilnätsstöd för fjärrstyrning; 4) videoöverföring för fjärrkörning; och 5) lagar och föreskrifter gällande fjärrstyrning. Innehållet i denna rapport avser att täcka tekniska detaljer och fynd inom samtliga av dessa ämnen, den är dock inte avsedd för att innehålla samtliga detaljer och resultat som redan har publicerats som vetenskapliga artiklar. Denna rapport bör ses som ett komplement till tidigare publicerade resultat.