Socially Sustainable Control Framework for Self-driving Vehicles

Considering an emerging technological potential for large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles, there is a need to establish intersection control mechanism. Contrary to some of the previous research efforts, this paper is proposing an expanded design perspective that includes social sustainability. The approach for sustainable design focuses on the notion of social justice. The framework of social justice is developed through a system of priority levels and hierarchically decentralized control based on distributed vehicle intelligence. The control mechanism has been developed in an agent-based environment. Testing of the system has proved its safety, user comfort, efficiency, and delay distribution requirements. Several recommendations for further research are presented.