The Effects of a Scheduled Driver Engagement Strategy in Automated Driving

Abstract

This simulator study investigated a driver engagement (DE) strategy designed to keep the driver-in-the-loop during automated driving in the face of two different types of secondary tasks. The method, first reported by Carsten et al. (2012), involved driving in fully automated driving mode for 6 minutes followed by 1 minute of manual driving, after which this fixed schedule was repeated several times throughout the drive. This scheduled strategy was compared to a reference condition in which different participants experienced continuous automated driving without interruptions. For each condition, some participants watched a video and others listened to the radio. All drives ended in automated driving mode with a surprise forward collision (FC) hazard to which the participant had to manually intervene. Compared to video watchers, radio listeners responded faster, looked to the road scene more, and they were more often looking forward at FC event onset. The DE strategy had no effect on radio listeners. In contrast, video watchers responded to the hazard more quickly with the scheduled strategy than without it. However, there was no reliable statistical difference between DE conditions in percent-eye-glance-time looking to the forward road scene during automated driving or in the number of drivers looking forward at FC event onset. Thus, the scheduled driver engagement strategy appears beneficial in the face of the visual (video) secondary task, but the reasons for this advantage remain to be determined.