Modelling Implicit and Explicit Communication Between Road Users from a Non-Cooperative Game-Theoretic Perspective: An Exploratory Study

Road user interaction is a fertile avenue for communication between road users, be it implicit communication or explicit signals sent with the intent to convey information. To date, most literature on characterising and modelling communication between road users has focussed on cooperative paradigms and concepts of shared goals enforced globally on communicating agents. In this paper, we argue that non-cooperative game theory can be used to characterise and model effective and mutually beneficial communication between road users. We demonstrate that non-cooperative game theory can produce meaningful improvements in payoffs and interaction safety for both the sender and recipient of communication as an emergent phenomenon.