Summary:As traffic volume and delay on highways increase each year, new solutions are required to meet travel demand and ease congestion. One possible solution, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, permits vehicles and infrastructure to communicate, providing the capability to maintain safety while increasing travel lane capacity. The technical capabilities have been demonstrated, but as important to ensuring successful implementation is an understanding of the potential human factors-related issues. Use of automation in the driving environment can have numerous pitfalls, which are heavily influenced by a variety of both deliberate and reflexive human judgments and decisions known to be error-prone. This paper examines these potential issues and identifies research areas and questions that may guide future research to evaluate the safety, efficacy, and acceptance of this new technology.

One of the new tools in human factors today is usability testing. More and more human factors professionals are conducting these tests to get accurate feedback from typical users to improve the usability, overall quality, and sales of their products. American Institutes for Research has been doing usability testing for five years now and have discussed testing with the directors of many labs. We have a body of knowledge and experience from which other professionals can benefit. In particular, we will be discussing data logging software and the functional requirements for it. In this paper we will describe the requirements for data logging software to log data, edit the data log, back up data and analyze data.Due to the scarcity of commercially available data logging packages (we know of only one at the present time) we found it necessary to write our own software for use in our usability lab and we know others are doing the same. Based on our experience of writing and using this software, we will describe the important functional requirements for data logging software.

Objective This field study examined the effects of adaptive cruise control (ACC) on mind wandering prevalence. Background ACC relieves the driver of the need to regulate vehicle speed and following distance, which may result in safety benefits. However, if ACC reduces the amount of attentional resources drivers must devote to driving, then drivers who use ACC may experience increased periods of mind wandering, which could reduce safety. Methods Participants drove a prescribed route on a public road twice, once using ACC and once driving manually. Mind wandering rates were assessed throughout the drive using auditory probes, which occurred at random intervals and required the participant to indicate whether or not they were mind wandering. Measures of physiological arousal and driving performance were also recorded. Results No evidence of increased mind wandering was found when drivers used ACC. In fact, female drivers reported reduced rates of mind wandering when driving with ACC relative to manual driving. Driving with ACC also tended to be associated with increased physiological arousal and improved driving behavior. Conclusion Use of ACC did not encourage increased mind wandering or negatively affect driving performance. In fact, the results indicate that ACC may have positive effects on driver safety among drivers who have limited experience with the technology. Application Driver characteristics, such as level of experience with in-vehicle technology and gender, should be considered when investigating driver engagement during ACC use. Field research on vehicle automation may provide valuable insights over and above studies conducted in driving simulators.

This paper describes two, part-task driving simulator studies that investigated how drivers handle safety information from multiple sources simultaneously, including in-vehicle and external sources. Specifically, the studies examined concurrent Driver-Infrastructure Interface (DII) and Driver-Vehicle Interface (DVI) displays for a gap-assist system while making a Left-Turn Across Path (LTAP) movement at a signalized intersection. Participants encountered repeated LTAP scenarios and indicated whether or not they would make a left turn through gaps in traffic that varied in size. Younger, middle, and older aged drivers participated in all experiments. The key factors examined included: gap size, age, display type (availability of DII and DVI information), and the visibility of oncoming traffic. The results indicated that participants primarily used the displays when their view of oncoming traffic was blocked, and they generally preferred the DII over the DVI. The key findings are discussed in terms of the effects of multiple sources of information, the effects of age, and visibility. BACKROUNDVehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications and Vehicleto-Infrastructure (V2I) communications involve the wireless exchange of data among and between infrastructure and vehicles traveling in the same vicinity with the goal of realizing significant safety, mobility, and environmental benefits. This communications capability will enable a host of vehicle-and infrastructure-based safety systems and applications. The vision is that all vehicles on the roadway, (e.g., automobiles, trucks, transit vehicles and motorcycles), will be able to communicate with other vehicles and the infrastructure to enable active safety applications, as well as improvements in mobility and environmental benefits. OVERVIEW OF GENERAL APPROACHThe overall objective for the empirical data collection was to examine the effects of providing concurrent infrastructurebased and in-vehicle safety messages on driver performance. Infrastructure-based messages are displayed on a DriverInfrastructure Interface (DII) within the environment, while in-vehicle messages are displayed on a Driver-Vehicle Interface (DVI) located within the vehicle cab, typically mounted near the dashboard or center stack. There is a concern that drivers may be confused by getting similar safety message information from two different sources (external and internal to the vehicle), and that this potential confusion might lead to compromised driver performance and safety.The basic empirical approach involved using a part-task driving simulator configuration to collect data about how drivers use gap-assist information from DII and DVI displays. The specific driving scenario examined was that of a driver making a Left Turn Across Path (LTAP) maneuver through a stream of oncoming traffic at a signalized intersection. Participants ran through repeated LTAP scenarios and indicated whether they would make a left turn through gaps in traffic by pressing the accelerator pedal. Each stream of traffic cons...

Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) are advanced communication and navigation systems that use computer-based in-vehicle systems to provide navigation and travel-related information to drivers. To help drivers navigate effectively and get to their destinations quickly and safely, navigational information must be effectively communicated to the driver. Landmarks are important environmental and navigational cues that help drivers to get to their destinations. This paper describes a study that tested the influence of landmark information in route guidance displays on navigation performance in a simulated driving environment. Forty-eight participants drove in a high-fidelity simulator and navigated using route guidance displays with and without landmark icons. The results indicated that landmarks were beneficial as a navigation aid; they helped drivers make turning decisions more quickly, especially in reduced visibility conditions (i.e., foggy conditions). Landmarks were particularly beneficial to older drivers by improving their turning accuracy and turn signal accuracy, especially in the fog.