Michael A. Mollenhauer

Effects of Age, System Experience, and Navigation Technique on Driving with an Advanced Traveler Information System

This paper explores the effects of age, system experience, and navigation technique on driving, navigation performance, and safety for drivers who used TravTek, an Advanced Traveler Information System. The first two studies investigated various route guidance configurations on the road in a specially equipped instrumented vehicle with an experimenter present. The third was a naturalistic quasi-experimental field study that collected data unobtrusively from more than 1200 TravTek rental car drivers with no in-vehicle experimenter. The results suggest that with increased experience, drivers become familiar with the system and develop strategies for substantially more efficient and safer use. The results also showed that drivers over age 65 had difficulty driving and navigating concurrently. They compensated by driving slowly and more cautiously. Despite this increased caution, older drivers made more safety-related errors than did younger drivers. The results also showed that older drivers benefited substantially from a well-designed ATIS driver interface.

ANTI-LOCK BRAKE SYSTEMS: AN ASSESSMENT OF TRAINING ON DRIVER EFFECTIVENESS

When activated correctly, Anti-Lock Brake Systems (ABS) can provide drivers with the ability to stop a vehicle in shorter distances and allow for more vehicle control under heavy braking than conventional brake systems. This is especially true under wet or icy road conditions. However, it is believed that many drivers are either unaware of the correct method of activation or they revert back to the old method of pumping the brakes when they are faced with a hard braking situation. This paper examines the effectiveness of implementing low-cost training methods for alerting drivers to the correct brake activation technique. A 4-page, color training pamphlet was developed and subjects were given a short period of time to read it over before being asked to drive on an icy test track. Results indicated that those subjects who received the training were able to stop in shorter distances in a straight line braking event and more often used the correct brake activation technique than those subjects who did not receive the training. However, the stopping distance benefits were not realized in the curved and surprise braking events. These results suggest that the transfer of verbal knowledge may have value as a means for solving the apparent problem of improper ABS usage. However, some additional research should be done to validate these results. Since this experiment was conducted directly after the material was read, the possibility exists that without reinforcement, the trained braking techniques might become extinct in a short period of time.

EMPIRICAL METHODS IN SUPPORT OF CRASH AVOIDANCE MODEL BUILDING AND BENEFITS ESTIMATION

ABSTRACT This paper describes the complex issues associated with proactive prediction of the safety impact of in-vehicle ITS and discusses two techniques for potentially successfully estimating such impacts. Specifically, indirect measurement of safety via promising surrogates, using near crashes and driver errors, as a means to predict crash rate is discussed. This discussion addresses the distinction between near misses and driver errors, and methods for data collection and analysis. The second method discussed is the collection of empirical, instrumented vehicle data for the specific purpose of providing input into models which estimate safety impacts. This concept, the collection of basic driver behavior and performance data in direct support of providing input to models is discussed by way of example