Successful defense of Daniel Eisele's phD thesis

Congratulations, Dr. Daniel Eisele!

We are pleased to announce the graduation of Daniel Eisele at our chair! On April 4, 2025 he successfully defended his dissertation on the topic:

" Effects of Novel eHMIs on Pedestrian-Vehicle Interactions"

The thesis was supervised by Prof. Tibor Petzoldt. Prof. Tibor Petzoldt and Prof. Martin Baumann acted as reviewers.

What is the dissertation about?

In his work, he investigates how external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) on automated vehicles influence the behavior, understanding and trust of pedestrians. He was able to show this in five experimental studies:

• eHMIs effectively support communication between AVs and pedestrians,
• The context has a major influence on the interpretation of eHMIs,
• Expectations and individual differences of road users are crucial,
• eHMIs have long-term effects on traffic behavior - even in classic vehicles.

His research provides valuable insights for safe, inclusive mobility of the future and underlines the need to design eHMIs that are close to reality.

Important publications 🔗 :

• Eisele, D., & Petzoldt, T. (2022). Effects of traffic context on eHMI icon comprehension. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior, 85, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2021.12.014

• Eisele, D., & Petzoldt, T. (2024). Effects of a frontal brake light on pedestrians' willingness to cross the street. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 23, 100990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2023.100990

• Eisele, D., Bubeck, C. B., Rudolf, M., & Petzoldt, T. (2024). The Prevalence of Automated Vehicles (with eHMIs) May Influence Pedestrian-Vehicle Interactions. 16th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, 329-337. https://doi.org/10.1145/3640792.3675723

• Eisele, D., Bubeck, C. B., & Petzoldt, T. (2023). Equipping Vehicles with Novel eHMIs Potentially Changes How Pedestrians Interact with Vehicles Without eHMIs. 2023 IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 602-607. https://doi.org/10.1109/ITSC57777.2023.10422107

• Eisele, D., Kraus, J., Schlemer, M. M., & Petzoldt, T. (2024). Should automated vehicles communicate their state or intent? Effects of eHMI activations and non-activations on pedestrians' trust formation and crossing behavior. Multimedia Tools and Applications, Special Issue 1246: User Experience (UX) in AV-Human Interaction. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11042-024-20497-0