The advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) requires a revolutionary rethinking of traffic norms. Current traffic regulations, drafted without automation in mind, are difficult to mechanize and monitor effectively. This seminar proposes a multidisciplinary approach to designing norms tailored for AVs, enabling the safe and intelligent integration of autonomous agents into our transportation systems. Addressing this challenge requires contributions from legal scholars, automotive experts, computer scientists specializing in formal logic, and experts in modeling and programming languages. Additionally, psychological insights into human trust in automation and probabilistic semantics to handle uncertainty in AV behaviors will be critical.

The seminar will tackle this complex issue across three levels:
1. Norm Design for Implementation: Establish traffic norms that can be transformed into vehicle’s operation. Ideally traffic rules should be comprehensible by humans and enforceable by AVs. This ensures compliance with traffic laws while adapting to dynamic conditions in human-machine interaction.
2. Hierarchical Formal Modeling of Traffic Rules: Develop a hierarchical modeling approach to avoid combinatorial explosion when accounting for cases, contexts and exceptions. This approach will streamline the rules and ensure scalability in various environments.
3. Formal Semantics: Define the underlying formal semantics that govern AV behavior, enabling deterministic, explainable and plausible responses that can be systematically implemented and verified. This will from a basis to societal acceptance of mixed traffic with humans and AVs.

- Trust in Automation: Understanding how human trust in AVs is established and maintained will be crucial for designing norms that promote safe, user-centered integration.
- Handling Uncertainty: Probabilistic semantics will be explored to model uncertainty in AV actions, particularly in untested or unknown scenarios, ensuring that AVs make safe decisions even under unpredictable conditions.

This effort is both timely and essential. As AVs progress, their deployment demands intelligent responses to unknown environments. Understandable behavior, continuous monitoring, and norm adherence will be indispensable for public trust and safety. The longterm impact of this seminar’s work would be transformative, paving the way for a future where autonomous agents can be seamlessly and safely integrated into everyday traffic.

Target Participants
To achieve this ambitious goal, the seminar will convene:
- Legal scholars to interpret and adapt current traffic laws.
- Automotive experts to assess feasibility within vehicle systems.
- Computer scientists with expertise in formal logic, modeling, and programming
languages.
- Psychologists and probabilistic modelers to account for human factors and
uncertainty.

Workplan
During the 5-day seminar, the complex topic will be covered in four different thematically centered sessions focusing on
1. formal interpretation of traffic rules,
2. handling of traffic rules in design of AVs,
3. assuring compliant operation of AVs and
4. impact on the transportation system and jurisdiction.
The second half of the seminar will provide break-out groups for the interactive elaboration of findings and questions that came up during the sessions from the first half.

Expected Outcomes
The presentations and discussions will be documented and we expect the following outcomes
• A Shonan Book giving an overview on the state-of-the-art on the topic from the perspective of the different domains (like law, computer science, engineering) including the results from the seminar
• Joint Project Initiatives
• Public Collection of the Seminar Material like Presentations and Pictures

Conclusion
By bringing together a unique blend of expertise, this seminar aims to establish foundational traffic norms for AVs, catalyzing safe, wide-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles and transforming modern transportation.