'Turn right at the King's Head': drivers' requirements for route guidance information

This thesis addresses a fundamental Human Factors question associated with the design of the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for in-vehicle electronic route guidance systems: what navigation information should such systems provide to drivers? To avoid the development of systems which demand excessive amounts of drivers' attention and processing resources or which are not satisfactory to the intended user population, it is critical that appropriate information is provided when and where needed. However, a review of the relevant literature revealed a paucity of research concerning this issue. [Continues.

The Effects of Landmark Information on Navigation Performance, Attention to the Driving Environment, and Vehicle Control

Recent research has helped confirm that landmarks are used as strong navigational signals and assist with way-finding strategies. Current in-vehicle information systems however, use little information in the way of landmarks, and instead rely heavily on distance information in order to direct drivers to their destination. It has been suggested that our spatial knowledge of an environment rarely uses distance information accurately. Although, recent research has shown that landmarks are helpful, a deeper understanding of what specific types of landmarks help with navigation is lacking in the literature. The current study attempts to fill in this gap in the literature and investigate in what sort of context - as previews of upcoming turns or identifiers of imminent turns - landmarks can be used. In the study, information about identification landmarks, preview landmarks, or distance to the next turn was presented in an in-vehicle information systems, and the effects on navigation performance, attention to the driving environment, and vehicle control were measured. It was hypothesized that both landmark conditions would lead to better navigation performance (e.g. fewer incorrect turns and near navigational errors), better attention to the driving environment (e.g. fewer driving errors and better performance on a recognition memory test) and lower variations in speed and steering wheel control, than when distance information is used on an IVIS to guide drivers. Results showed that both types of landmark information led to fewer incorrect turns than with distance information. Participants using distance information made many incorrect turns in the first segment of the route, which suggests a learning effect with this type of information, because the other two conditions did not experience such results. Landmarks did not lead to fewer near navigational errors (incorrect signaling) or driving errors. Participants in the landmark conditions did not perform better than those using distance information on the recognition memory test. Variations in speed and steering wheel control were similar in all conditions

Spatial ability, urban wayfinding and location-based services:a review and first results

Location-Based Services (LBS) are a new industry at the core of which are GISand spatial databases. With increasing mobility of individuals, the anticipatedavailability of broadband communications for mobile devices and growingvolumes of location specific information available in databases there willinevitably be an increase in demand for services providing location relatedinformation to people on the move. New Information and CommunicationTechnologies (NICTs) are providing enhanced possibilities for navigating ?smartcities?. Urban environments, meanwhile, have increasing spatial complexity.Navigating urban environments is becoming an important issue. The time is ripefor a re-appraisal of urban wayfinding. This paper critically reviews the currentLBS applications and raises a series of questions with regard to LBS for urbanwayfinding. Research is being carried out to measure individuals? spatialability/awareness and their degree of preference for using LBS in wayfinding. Themethodology includes both the use of questionnaires and a virtual reality CAVE.Presented here are the results of the questionnaire survey which indicate therelationships between individuals? spatial ability, use of NICTs and modepreference for receiving wayfinding cues. Also discussed are our future researchdirections on LBS, particular on issues of urban wayfinding using NICTs

This is the tricky part: When directions become difficult

Automated route guidance systems, both web-based systems and en-route systems, have become commonplace in recent years. These systems often replace humangenerated directions, which are often incomplete, vague, or in error. However, humangenerated directions have the ability to differentiate between easy and complex steps through language in a way that is more difficult in automated systems. This article examines a set of human-generated verbal directions to better understand why some parts of directions are perceived as being more difficult than the remaining steps. Insights from this analysis will lead to recommendations to improve the next generation of automated route guidance systems

Older drivers' requirements for navigation and route guidance information

This thesis examines older drivers and navigation. Over more recent times the proportion of older people in the UK population has risen. This effect is carrying over into the driving population. Due to changing demographics, increased longevity and the increased universality of driving there will be many more older drivers than before. Older drivers find the navigation task of finding their way on unfamiliar routes very demanding due to declines in sensory and cognitive abilities. New technology such as route guidance systems could aid the older driver in this task, by reducing uncertainty when meeting decision points on the road network. However such systems can also cause distraction. This has led to concern over the safety implications of the implementation of route guidance systems into cars. If route guidance systems are to be designed safely then the characteristics and needs of the driver have to be identified. The aim of this thesis was to provide human factors knowledge in this area so that route guidance systems can be designed to meet the needs of older drivers. [Continues.

Design advice for the inclusion of landmarks in vehicle navigation systems

The following advice has been developed from results of research studies carried out over the course of the REGIONAL project (1999-2002). These results, and the studies that produced them, are described in more detail in section 2 of this document. It also takes into account limited findings in the existing literature relating to the use of landmarks within navigation systems. The aim of REGIONAL was to support the inclusion of landmarks within navigation instructions by generating advice on: • What landmarks to choose and incorporate in databases • How to use them appropriately during the navigation task • The factors to take into account when presenting landmarks within system

This is the tricky part: When directions become difficult

Automated route guidance systems, both web-based systems and en-route systems, have become commonplace in recent years. These systems often replace human-generated directions, which are often incomplete, vague, or in error. However, human-generated directions have the ability to differentiate between easy and complex steps through language in a way that is more difficult in automated systems. This article examines a set of human-generated verbal directions to better understand why some parts of directions are perceived as being more difficult than the remaining steps. Insights from this analysis will lead to recommendations to improve the next generation of automated route guidance systems

Adding value for the navigation user

You’ve lost your way in a new town and you stop to ask a local how you get to Park Street. How would they describe it? Probably something like this: “Go to the next roundabout and turn left, then keep going until you see the BP™ Petrol Station, turn right straight after that and you’ll go past the Kings Head pub, I’m pretty sure Park Street is after that on the left – I think there’s a post office on the corner, you can’t miss it”. Ask a current navigation system the same question and you’ll probably get a series of very accurate distance-based instructions, e.g. “Left turn in 300 metres” but you might not have the confidence that you had when you saw the petrol station and the pub that had been mentioned, even though your helper was bit unsure

On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for navigation. Landmark salience is derived as a result of the observer's point of view, both physical and cognitive, the surrounding environment, and the objects contained therein. This is in contrast to the currently held view that salience is an inherent property of some spatial feature. Salience, in our approach, is expressed as a three-valued Saliency Vector. The components that determine this vector are Perceptual Salience, which defines the exogenous (or passive) potential of an object or region for acquisition of visual attention, Cognitive Salience, which is an endogenous (or active) mode of orienting attention, triggered by informative cues providing advance information about the target location, and Contextual Salience, which is tightly coupled to modality and task to be performed. This separation between voluntary and involuntary direction of visual attention in dependence of the context allows defining a framework that accounts for the interaction between observer, environment, and landmark. We identify the low-level factors that contribute to each type of salience and suggest a probabilistic approach for their integration. Finally, we discuss the implications, consider restrictions, and explore the scope of the framewor