Driving Simulator Study Found 28.9 Percent Reduction in Lane Changing Response Time with Lane Changing Warning in Connected Driving Conditions Compared to Driving Without Driving Aids.
Researchers Evaluated Lane-Change Assist Technology with 78 Participants Using Connected Driving Simulator that Replicated Australian Driving Conditions.
Australia
Cooperate or not? Exploring drivers’ interactions and response times to a lane-changing request in a connected environment
Summary Information
Connected driving environments are designed to assist drivers during critical tasks such as lane-changing decision-making process, by increasing situational awareness of surrounding traffic through vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. This study examined drivers’ responses to lane-changing requests in a connected environment reflecting Australian road standards, using a driving simulator with 78 participants under two randomized driving conditions: baseline (traditional environment without driving aids) and connected environment (with driving aids).
METHODOLOGY
In this study, a hypothetical 3.2 km (2 miles) long four-lane motorway with two lanes in each direction was designed for the driving simulator experiments. The designed motorway had a posted speed limit of 100 km/h (62 mph). In the connected driving condition scenario, participants were assisted with driving aids in the form of imagery (a text message) and auditory (a beep sound) alerts in responding to the lane-changing requests. A segmentation-based approach was employed to extract drivers’ responses to the lane changing request and estimate their response time from a dataset of 156 trajectories collected during driving simulator experiments. Drivers’ response times were modelled using a random parameter Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) hazard-based duration model.
FINDINGS
- Results revealed that the proportion of drivers that accelerated and ignored the lane-changing request of the lane changer decreased by 80 percent comparing the baseline and connected driving conditions.
- The proportion of drivers that showed courtesy (cooperation) to the lane-changing request increased by 36 percent comparing the baseline and connected driving conditions.
- This study also found 28.9 percent reduction in lane changing response time from 1.59 to 1.13 seconds, comparing the baseline and connected driving conditions.
- Results also indicated that the average inserting gaps (distance between the front bumper of the subject vehicle to the rear bumper of the lead vehicle) increased by 24.4 percent from 20.43 m to 25.41 m, comparing the baseline and connected driving conditions, implying an improved safety margin during lane changing process.
