Objective: An experiment was performed in a driving simulator to investigate the impacts of practice, trust, and interaction on manual control recovery (MCR) when employing fully automated driving (FAD). Background: To increase the use of partially or highly automated driving efficiency and to improve safety, some studies have addressed trust in driving automation and training, but few studies have focused on FAD. FAD is an autonomous system that has full control of a vehicle without any need for intervention by the driver. Method: A total of 69 drivers with a valid license practiced with FAD. They were distributed evenly across two conditions: simple practice and elaborate practice. Results: When examining emergency MCR, a correlation was found between trust and reaction time in the simple practice group (i.e., higher trust meant a longer reaction time), but not in the elaborate practice group. This result indicated that to mitigate the negative impact of overtrust on reaction time, more appropriate practice may be needed. Conclusions: Drivers should be trained in how the automated device works so as to improve MCR performance in case of an emergency. Application: The practice format used in this study could be used for the first interaction with an FAD car when acquiring such a vehicle.
1 May 2019 in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
Given the rise of automated vehicles from an engineering and technical perspective, there has been increased research interest concerning the Human and Computer Interactions (HCI) between vulnerable road users (VRUs, such as cyclists and pedestrians) and automated vehicles. As with all HCI challenges, clear communication and a common understanding—in this application of shared road usage—is critical in order to reduce conflicts and crashes between the VRUs and automated vehicles. In an effort to solve this communication challenge, various external human–machine interface (eHMI) solutions have been developed and tested across the world. This paper presents a timely critical review of the literature on the communication between automated vehicles and VRUs in shared spaces. Recent developments will be explored and studies analyzing their effectiveness will be presented, including the innovative use of Virtual Reality (VR) for user assessments. This paper provides insight into several gaps in the eHMI literature and directions for future research, including the need to further research eHMI effects on cyclists, investigate the negative effects of eHMIs, and address the technical challenges of eHMI implementation. Furthermore, it has been underlined that there is a lack of research into the use of eHMIs in shared spaces, where the communication and interaction needs differ from conventional roads.