Human Factors Field Evaluation of Automotive Headway Maintenance/Collision Warning Devices

Abstract

Three on-road studies were conducted to determine how headway maintenance and collision warning displays influence driver behavior. Visual perspective, visual perspective with a pointer, visual perspective combined with an auditory warning, discrete visual warning, and discrete auditory warning were assessed during both coupled headway and deceleration events. Results indicate that when drivers are provided with salient visual information regarding safe headways, they utilize the information and increase their headway when appropriate. Auditory warnings were less effective than visual warnings for increasing headways but may be helpful for improving reaction time during events that require deceleration. Drivers were some what insensitive to false alarm rates, at least during short-term use. Finally, and most important, driver headway maintenance increased by as much as 0.5 s when the appropriate visual display was used. However, a study to investigate the long term effects of such displays on behavior is strongly recommended prior to mass marketing of headway maintenance/collision warning devices.

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Thomas A. Dingus is a professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In addition, he is director of the University Center for Transportation Research. He received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research from Virginia Tech in 1987,

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Daniel V. McGehee holds an M.S. in human factors from the University of Idaho. He is currently a research associate in the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Iowa's Iowa Driving Simulator.

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Natarajan Manakkal received his B.S. degree from the University of Madras, Madras, India in 1992 and is a graduate student in industrial engineering at the University of Iowa. He is currently working at Honda Research and Development in Torrence, California.

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Steven K. Jahns received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa (1996). He is a project engineer at the PACCAR Technical Center in Mount Vernon, Washington.

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Cher Carney received a B.A. in psychology from the University of Northern Iowa and is currently pursuing an M.S. degree in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa. She is a graduate research assistant working at the Iowa Driving Simulator.

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Jonathan M. Hankey received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering/ ergonomics from the University of Iowa in 1996 and is an ergonomist/operations technician at Boeing Commercial Airplane Group in Seattle, Washington.