When we want to let a pedestrian know we see them, and we're yielding so they can cross the road, we wave them on. Sometimes, a bit of eye contact and a nod are all that's needed to get the point across.
It's simple enough for two humans to communicate, but within five years, we could start seeing self-driving vehicles on the roads of cities like Columbia. How will a car with no driver let a pedestrian know it is yielding?
Ford and Virginia Tech Transportation Institute teamed up to find out. They recorded over 150 hours of footage of a Ford Transit Connect van driving around an urban environment, interacting with pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers. The driver of the van was wearing a car-seat costume to make people think it was a self-driving vehicle.
The communication system they were testing is a horizontal bar of lights, which move side-to-side to indicate yielding, and flash rapidly to indicate intent to start moving again. Ford is working with various organizations to have their system made standard across the industry.