A system for estimating a driving intention of a vehicle driver comprises a vehicle surroundings detection device for detecting the vehicle surroundings, an operational input detection device for detecting operational input by the actual driver, a first virtual driver operational input calculation device for calculating the required operational input by a first method based on the vehicle surroundings in order to execute the driving intention of each virtual driver for multiple differing virtual drivers, a second virtual driver operational input calculation device for calculating the required operational input by a second method that differs from the first method based on information differing from said vehicle surroundings in order to execute the driving intention of each virtual driver, a virtual driver operational input selection device for selecting either the operational input of the multiple virtual drivers computed by the first driver operational input calculation device or the operational input of multiple virtual drivers computed by the second driver operational input calculation device, based on the running condition, an operational input degree of similarity calculation device for calculating each degree of similarity between the operational input of multiple virtual drivers and the operational input for the actual driver, and a driving intention estimation device for estimating the driving intention of said actual driver based on the multiple operational input degree of similarity.
Driving Intention Estimation System, Vehicle Operation Assistance System and Vehicle Equipped Therewith