Producing a commentary slows concurrent hazard perception responses

Commentary driver training involves teaching drivers how to verbally acknowledge their perceptual and cognitive processes while driving, and has been shown to improve performance in driving-related tasks. However, those studies demonstrating benefits of commentary training have not done so under conditions of live commentary, which is the typical protocol used with advanced drivers. In the current study we present the results of two experiments that show that producing a commentary can actually slow responses to hazards on a concurrent hazard perception task. In Experiment 1 participants producing a live commentary showed significantly longer hazard response times than an untrained, silent, control group. In Experiment 2 a shorter, clipped commentary was introduced to attempt to reduce the demands placed upon participants. However, both the clipped and full commentary conditions showed reduced accuracy and longer response times, relative to a silent condition, and no difference was observed between the two types of commentary. Analysis of eye movements in both experiments revealed that fixation durations were shorter when a commentary was produced, but time to first fixate the hazard was not affected. This suggests that commentaries encourage more active interrogation of the visual scene, but that this can be detrimental to performance in average drivers

Integrating driving and traffic simulators for the study of railway level crossing safety interventions: a methodology

Safety at Railway Level Crossings (RLXs) is an important issue within the Australian transport system. Crashes at RLXs involving road vehicles in Australia are estimated to cost $10 million each year. Such crashes are mainly due to human factors; unintentional errors contribute to 46% of all fatal collisions and are far more common than deliberate violations. This suggests that innovative intervention targeting drivers are particularly promising to improve RLX safety. In recent years there has been a rapid development of a variety of affordable technologies which can be used to increase driver’s risk awareness around crossings. To date, no research has evaluated the potential effects of such technologies at RLXs in terms of safety, traffic and acceptance of the technology. Integrating driving and traffic simulations is a safe and affordable approach for evaluating these effects. This methodology will be implemented in a driving simulator, where we recreated realistic driving scenario with typical road environments and realistic traffic. This paper presents a methodology for evaluating comprehensively potential benefits and negative effects of such interventions: this methodology evaluates driver awareness at RLXs , driver distraction and workload when using the technology . Subjective assessment on perceived usefulness and ease of use of the technology is obtained from standard questionnaires. Driving simulation will provide a model of driving behaviour at RLXs which will be used to estimate the effects of such new technology on a road network featuring RLX for different market penetrations using a traffic simulation. This methodology can assist in evaluating future safety interventions at RLXs

Evaluating the effects of bilingual traffic signs on driver performance and safety

Variable Message Signs (VMS) can provide immediate and relevant information to road users and bilingual VMS can provide great flexibility in countries where a significant proportion of the population speak an alternative language to the majority. The study reported here evaluates the effect of various bilingual VMS configurations on driver behaviour and safety. The aim of the study was to determine whether or not the visual distraction associated with bilingual VMS signs of different configurations (length, complexity) impacted on driving performance. A driving simulator was used to allow full control over the scenarios, road environment and sign configuration and both longitudinal and lateral driver performance was assessed. Drivers were able to read one and two-line monolingual signs and two-line bilingual signs without disruption to their driving behaviour. However, drivers significantly reduced their speed in order to read four-line monolingual and four-line bilingual signs, accompanied by an increase in headway to the vehicle in front. This implies that drivers are possibly reading the irrelevant text on the bilingual sign and various methods for reducing this effect are discussed

The effects of road commentary training on novice drivers' visual search behaviour: A preliminary investigation

One of the major challenges facing novice drivers seems to be adequately scanning, detecting, and responding to hazards which present during the course of everyday driving; a process that involves ‘reading the road’ and modifying driver behaviour accordingly. Previous studies have indicated that inexperienced drivers tend to utilise only a small proportion of the visual field when driving, and this limited visual search behaviour may play a significant role in the over-representation of young novice drivers’ involvement in crashes. This deficiency in visual search is especially evidenced through crashes occurring at intersections, or other densely populated road environments. More recently, road commentary has become of interest within a number of driver education initiatives, and several current studies have indicated that road commentary indeed improves drivers’ performance in hazard perception tasks. However, relatively little is known about commentaries influence on the underlying cognitive mechanisms responsible for enhanced situation awareness or hazard awareness, and whether such improvements generalize to a broader range of road scenarios. Using hazard perception and eye-tracking measures, we started to examine how road commentary could influence the way drivers visually accrue and process essential road information. First, our data confirmed that commentary training significantly increased the percentage of hazards identified. But additionally, preliminary eye movement data indicated that road commentary may have influenced visual search behaviour of the participants by ‘prompting’ them to allocate extra visual attention capacity to hazard rich areas, as evidenced by an increase of their fixation clusters across the visual field. This could help increase situation awareness, and convert to safer driving behaviour and reduced risk-taking

Driven to distraction: Determining the effects of roadside advertising on driver attention

There is growing concern that roadside advertising presents a real risk to driving safety, with conservative estimates putting external distractors responsible for up to 10% of all accidents. In this report, we present a simulator study quantifying the effects of billboards on driver attention, mental workload and performance in Urban, Motorway and Rural environments. The results demonstrate that roadside advertising has a clear detrimental effect on lateral control, increases mental workload and eye fixations, and on some roads can draw attention away from more relevant road signage. Detailed analysis of the data suggests that the effects of billboards may in fact be more consequential in scenarios which are monotonous or of lower workload. Nevertheless, the overriding conclusion is that prudence should be exercised when authorising or placing roadside advertising. The findings are discussed with respect to governmental policy and guidelines.Final report of a study funded by The Rees Jeffreys Road Fun

Evaluation of a Simulator Based, Novice Driver Risk Awareness Training Program

An advanced training program on risk perception was developed and evaluated in a driving simulator. This training program included two elements. The first one was a PC-based Risk Awareness and Perception Program (RAPT) that had been developed and evaluated in several studies by researches at the Human Performance Lab within the last several years. Plan views of risky scenarios were used to explain to participants the location of potential hazards. The second element of the training (SIMRAPT) was newly developed for this study and used the portable low-cost driving simulator Drive Square Simulation System to train risk perception skills while the participant actually drove a real car in a virtual environment. A head mounted display was used to present the virtual world. Feedback was given to participants when they failed to scan appropriately for hazards. Twelve novice drivers served as experimental group and were trained with the combined RAPT/SIMRAPT training program. Twelve other novice drivers were given training not relevant to hazard anticipation and served as the control group. After training, both groups were evaluated on an advanced driving simulator (different from the Drive Square Simulation System used in SIMRAPT training) and the eye movements of both groups of drivers were measured. The drivers’ score was based on whether or not their eye-fixations indicated recognition of potential risks in different driving situations. The evaluation included eight scenarios used in the RAPT/SIMRAPT training (near transfer scenarios) and eight scenarios that were not used in the training (far transfer scenarios). The results indicated that trained drivers are more likely than untrained drivers to fixate on regions where potential risks might appear. Further the evaluation indicates that the training effect of the combined training using both the PC (RAPT) and a low-cost driving simulator (SIMRAPT) is larger than for training programs that only use the PC, though not significantly so

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Gaze-Based Training Intervention on Latent Hazard Anticipation Skills for Young Drivers: A Driving Simulator Study

A PC-based training program (Road Awareness and Perception Training or RAPT; Pradhan et al., 2009), proven effective for improving young novice drivers\u27 hazard anticipation skills, did not fully maximize the hazard anticipation performance of young drivers despite the use of similar anticipation scenarios in both, the training and the evaluation drives. The current driving simulator experiment examined the additive effects of expert eye movement videos following RAPT training on young drivers\u27 hazard anticipation performance compared to video-only and RAPT-only conditions. The study employed a between-subject design in which 36 young participants (aged 18-21) were equally and randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions, were outfitted with an eye tracker and drove four unique scenarios on a driving simulator to evaluate the effect of treatment on their anticipation skills. The results indicate that the young participants that viewed the videos of expert eye movements following the completion of RAPT showed significant improvements in their hazard anticipation ability (85%) on the subsequent experimental evaluation drives compared to those young drivers who were only exposed to either the RAPT training (61%) or the Video (43%). The results further imply that videos of expert eye movements shown immediately after RAPT training may improve the drivers\u27 anticipation skills by helping them map and integrate the spatial and tactical knowledge gained in a training program within dynamic driving environments involving latent hazards. © 2018 by the authors

Active training and driving-specific feedback improve older drivers' visual search prior to lane changes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Driving retraining classes may offer an opportunity to attenuate some effects of aging that may alter driving skills. Unfortunately, there is evidence that classroom programs (driving refresher courses) do not improve the driving performance of older drivers. The aim of the current study was to evaluate if simulator training sessions with video-based feedback can modify visual search behaviors of older drivers while changing lanes in urban driving.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the video-based feedback training, 10 older drivers who received a driving refresher course and feedback about their driving performance were tested with an on-road standardized evaluation before and after participating to a simulator training program (Feedback group). Their results were compared to a Control group (12 older drivers) who received the same refresher course and in-simulator active practice as the Feedback group without receiving driving-specific feedback.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After attending the training program, the Control group showed no increase in the frequency of the visual inspection of three regions of interests (rear view and left side mirrors, and blind spot). In contrast, for the Feedback group, combining active training and driving-specific feedbacks increased the frequency of blind spot inspection by 100% (32.3 to 64.9% of verification before changing lanes).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that simulator training combined with driving-specific feedbacks helped older drivers to improve their visual inspection strategies, and that in-simulator training transferred positively to on-road driving. In order to be effective, it is claimed that driving programs should include active practice sessions with driving-specific feedbacks. Simulators offer a unique environment for developing such programs adapted to older drivers' needs.</p

The Effects of PC-Based Training on Novice Drivers\u27 Risk Awareness in a Driving Simulator

Novice drivers are almost nine times more likely to die in a crash thanmore experienced drivers. This increased risk has been found to be largely due tonovice drivers’ inability to predict the risks in the roadway ahead. A PC-basedRisk Awareness and Perception Training Program (RAPT) was developed toteach novice drivers about different categories of risky situations likely to beencountered while driving. The format was an interactive multimedia presentationwith both plan (i.e., top down) views and perspective views of roadway geometrythat illustrated generally risky scenarios along with information about the type ofrisks and the relevant areas that attention should be allocated to in order to detectthe risks. A set of novice drivers was trained with this program. The eyemovementsof the participants were then evaluated in a driving simulator todetermine whether areas of potential risk were fixated, and their performance wascompared to a separate set of untrained novice drivers. The ability of the novicedrivers to identify risks in static views improved after they completed the trainingprogram. More importantly, the trained novice drivers were significantly morelikely to correctly fixate on risk relevant areas in the simulated drivingenvironment than the untrained drivers 3-5 days after training

ADVANCED VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSET BASED TRAINING TO IMPROVE YOUNG DRIVERS’ LATENT HAZARD ANTICIPATION ABILITY

Driving safety among young novice driver is one of the largest concern in the transportation domain. Many Paper-based or PC- based training program have been developed over the years to train the young novice driver to improve their driving skills (Hazard Anticipation). This training programs does help young novice driver to improve their situational awareness and so the hazard anticipation skills. But, there is one common problem with most of the currently available training programs. They are not very immersive, because such training program mostly provide plain view of the training scenario’s along with some description about the scenario and the subject trained in such training method needs to translate the provided knowledge in the plain view into the real-world driving. An Advanced training program on risk awareness and perception was developed and evaluated in Oculus rift platform. The primary objective is to train the young novice driver in the Virtual reality headset based risk awareness and perception training program and evaluate the trained driver in the driving simulator against the placebo trained young novice driver. The Virtual reality headset based risk awareness and perception training program (V-RAPT) is based on 3M Error-based Training approach where the driver will have 80 horizontal degrees’ and 90 vertical degrees’ field of view. Thirty-six drivers will receive training in the respective training methods- V-RAPT (Virtual reality headset based risk awareness and perception training), RAPT (PC- based risk awareness and perception training) and placebo training. Twelve young novice driver trained in the V-RAPT group will served as experimental group. Twenty-four other young novice will receive training in the RAPT and Placebo training respective will serve as control group. After training all three-group trained driver will be evaluated in the advanced driving simulator and the eye movement of the all thirty-six participants are recorded and measured. Vehicle measures such as acceleration, velocity and brake position is also recorded. The drivers’ score will based on whether or not their eye-fixations indicated recognition of potential risks in different high risk driving situations. The evaluation driver included six scenarios used in the V-RAPT training (near transfer scenarios) and four scenarios that were not used in the V-RAPT training (far transfer scenarios). Drivers who received the V-RAPT training are expected to drive more safely than the drivers who received either training. The V-RAPT trained drivers are expected to glance on regions (Hazard anticipation) where potential risks might appear than the drivers’ trained in the RAPT and Placebo training method. Further, The V-RAPT trained drivers are expected have slower average velocity and better brake position (Hazard mitigation) are compared to the driver trained in the other two training method