Situation Awareness in Driving While Using Adaptive Cruise Control and a Cell Phone

Abstract

This research investigated the effects of an adaptive cruise control (ACC) system, and cell phone use in driving, on a direct objective measure of situation awareness (SA). Subjects drove a virtual car in a medium-fidelity driving simulation and performed a following task. Half of the subjects were required to respond to cell phone calls and all subjects completed trials with and without use of the ACC system. SA was measured using a simulation freeze technique and SA queries on the driving situation. Results indicated use of the ACC system to improve driving task SA under normal driving conditions, and cell phone conversations degraded SA. Results also revealed the ACC system to improve safe driving headway distance. Although the deviations in headway distance from an optimum were greater during cell phone conversations, this did not prove to be significant in terms of performance under normal driving conditions.