TrolleyMod v1.0: An Open-Source Simulation and Data-Collection Platform for Ethical Decision Making in Autonomous Vehicles

This paper presents TrolleyMod v1.0, an open-source platform based on the CARLA simulator for the collection of ethical decision-making data for autonomous vehicles. This platform is designed to facilitate experiments aiming to observe and record human decisions and actions in high-fidelity simulations of ethical dilemmas that occur in the context of driving. Targeting experiments in the class of trolley problems, TrolleyMod provides a seamless approach to creating new experimental settings and environments with the realistic physics-engine and the high-quality graphical capabilities of CARLA and the Unreal Engine. Also, TrolleyMod provides a straightforward interface between the CARLA environment and Python to enable the implementation of custom controllers, such as deep reinforcement learning agents. The results of such experiments can be used for sociological analyses, as well as the training and tuning of value-aligned autonomous vehicles based on social values that are inferred from observations.