Summary of OS Operations

This deliverable provides an overview of the OS operations during the data collection phase. It contains the vehicles instrumentation towards the start of full-scale operations, the operational tasks involved during the data collection to monitor the vehicles, the drivers and the data quality, the final stage including the de-installation and the exit questionnaire collection and an overview of the final sample and total data collected per OS and per vehicle type. The deliverable concludes with the summary of the learned lessons, in regards to recruitment, instrumentation and data collection

Lessons learnt from OS operations

This report focuses on the specific lessons learnt from the data collection in UDRIVE, derived from the difficulties encountered by the operation sites and the solutions applied to mitigate the problems where possible. These lessons learnt concern all aspects of the data collection. Such lessons learnt will provide useful insights for any future naturalistic driving study or field operational test. During the project, the operation sites provided three feedbacks related to their lessons learnt. These reports covered the pilot phase, the first six months of data collection and the last one at the end of the data collection. This iterative process gathered 71 lessons learnt. After the data collection, the final questionnaire was filled in by the participants and they provided with some interesting feedback. Most important lesssons learned were: Selecting only one or two vehicle types contributed to easier instrumentation of the Data Acquisaition System to the vehicles. However, this decision put some constraints in the recruitment of participants due the different fleet of vehicles across the European countries, especially some models were not very common in certain countries. One of the common problems across the Operation Sites (OS) was the participants’ drop-outs. The main lesson learnt was that it is important to maintain a set of replacement participants until the end of the project to cover any eventual drop out. Data protection was one of the most challenging aspects of the project. Dealing with images and personal data create some difficulties between the partners and their country data protection agencies. From the participants’ questionnaires, it was noted that even if they felt comfortable, their driving behaviour was somehow affected. Hide the equipment, and especially the cameras, the best it can be will help the participants drive normally. They also were pleased to have all the information beforehand and happy when dates, deadlines, incentives, etc., were respected as explained to them. When involving any external supplier (e.g. rental vehicle company, garage, equipment supplier, etc.). the role, responsibilities, response time, liability, etc., of every supplier have to be defined in more detail to avoid misunderstandings, delays or ambiguities. Developing as early as possible a very detailed and realistic plan of action allows to avoid delays, overspending, save resources and to achieve the project objectives

Overview of OS preparation, sample characteristics and piloting

The deliverable presents the preparation for data collection for each OS. It elaborates on prerequisites for each OS, in terms of logistics, documentation, and instrumentation. Moreover, it details the pilot test procedures to dictate the experimentation. Lastly, the feedback for each OS is reported through a checklist in all possible contexts of the trial and also through reporting of issues

Operation sites description and planning

This deliverable presents the seven operating sites (OS): Austria (PTWs, KFV), France (Cars, CEESAR), Germany (Cars, DLR), Netherlands (Trucks, TNO), Poland (Cars, IBDIM), Spain (PTWs, CIDAUT), UK (Cars, UNIVLEEDS/LOUGHBOROU). Each OS determines its geographical coverage and personnel responsible for trial operation. They confirm compliance with the global schedule and with site specific schedules. Further planning issues consider participant liaison strategies, collection of subjective data, data acquisition system installation and maintenance procedure, data collection and management, data and operational quality assurance, end of trial management and ethical ap-proval and legal issues. All OS planned the trials following the common guidelines, but also accommodated the trial preparation to local circumstances

Heart rate variability and skin conductance biofeedback: A triple-blind randomized controlled study

<p>This poster shows the results of a triple-blind randomized controlled study into heart rate variability and skin conductance biofeedback. We did not find any effect of the HRV/SCL-biofeedback on any of the outcome measures.</p

Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D4.1 Usability assessment of selected applications

n recent years ITS applications have assisted in reducing the number of road traffic accident fatalities in Europe. However, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited to the same extent as vehicle users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applica-tions for VRUs. This process involves assessing the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifying how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved and recommending which actions have to be taken at a policy level to accelerate de-ployment of such ITS. This deliverable reports the work performed during the second period of activity focusing on a number of selected existing ITS which are already present on the market. In particular, user-acceptance and usability of existing ITS services for VRUs, have been assessed, focusing on comfort/mobility and ef-fectiveness of related information (the HMI) for special user groups, such as elderly subjects. In Chapter 1 the Project and the objectives of the deliverable are described. The concept of the Vul-nerable Road Users and ITS interfaces are then presented. In chapter 2 the method for evaluation and screening of existing ITS systems is described. The usabil-ity assessment has been performed by experts, which were provided a detailed description of several ITS systems for VRUs. Starting from the inventory of ITS systems in D2.1, the most suitable systems for usability assessment were selected. The selection of the ITS systems to be assessed has been conducted following the feedback received from the activity carried out in WP 2. A questionnaire has been developed for the evaluation of interfaces, based on the literature work already carried out in the past. The selected ITS systems have been studied in detail in order to develop sufficient material to distrib-ute to interviewees together with the questionnaire. This aimed to support the interface usability pro-cess even in situations where the actual systems were not available. The 4 selected systems are mainly dedicated to pedestrians, drivers of PTWs, cyclists and drivers, and are: Intelligent pedestrian traffic signal Cyclist digital rear-view mirror PTW oncoming vehicle information assistance system Blind spot detection system his process led to the development of a substantial amount of material and information (mainly in the form of links to video and on-line demonstrations of ITS) that were made available to interviewees to support their evaluation process. The complete set of material, i.e., the questionnaire and supporting material, for 4 different ITS have been distributed to a number of interviewees. In Chapter 3 the VRUITS questionnaire used for usability is presented and explained together with the data collection findings. Chapter 4 discusses the actual survey results about ITS usability. A total of 152 individual replies were collected, and each of the system was assessed by 35-42 persons. This data has been collected and analysed, utilising standard statistical tools, mainly SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for data mining and data analysis. Finally Chapter 5 and 6 a discussion about the results as well as the research conclusions are report-ed. The overall findings of the investigation revealed that it was possible to discriminate and identify areas of improvement for usability issues on all the four ITS systems under investigation. In general, the results revealed common usability patterns across the four ITS systems. In particular, the Perception of risk avoidance (given by the ITS system) and Communication of Risk (risk warning by the ITS) were rated the best usability properties of the various ITS systems. Providing feed-forward information about incoming hazardous situations and subsequent appropriate perception of risk avoid-ance are the best properties among all the four ITS systems. Also, the highest rated usability features across all ITS systems were the clarity of the system functions (Explicitness), the way the systems work and operate (Functionality) and the degree of control by the user (User Control). Some major areas of improvement were revealed also. Firstly, the lowest rated usability features across all four ITS systems were System Monitoring, Flexibility and Consistency. This latter finding could suggests the evidence that all four ITS systems might need more focus on adaptability to road context, consistency of functions in difficult weather conditions and finally a more active monitoring of human behaviour in response to the ITS (where this is applicable). Secondly, Trust in the ITS system, and the perception of Safety Improvement revealed to be weak ITS properties overall. Some work on trust in safety and ITS automation and safety improvement perception (in using such systems) could be brought forward as the aim of the ITS system for VRUs is exactly to increase Safety. In fact, a user attitude of trust in the systems and belief that such systems could improve their safety is a substantial desirable scenario to strive for. Notably, younger people (62). Nevertheless the rating is on the same direction for both sub-samples of respondents. Finally, the replies from experts in the sample did not differ from the overall group for the general usability and the for usability scales except for minor differences