Final Report Summary - ITERATE (IT for Error Remediation And Trapping Emergencies)
Executive Summary:
In recent years, a variety of drive/support and information management systems have been designed and implemented with the objective of improving safety as well as the performance of vehicles. While the crucial issues at a technical level have been mostly solved their consequences on driver activity remains open and needs to be fully explained. Of particular importance are their effects on driver behaviour and strategies, and their impact on the operation and safety of the traffic system. Thus, the main objective for the ITERATE project was to develop a unified model of driver behaviour (UMD) and the driver’s interaction with different support systems. The model should be applicable to all surface transport modes (road, rail and water) and include key operator factors (e.g. personality, experience, workload, and driver state) that capture a broad range of behaviour. The underlying assumption was that limited set of human factors could be used to model driver behaviour independent of transport mode. A comprehensive state of the art review of driver modelling efforts was initially carried out in the project. The most suitable model was found to be a model developed within the past AIDE project. This motivational model was further developed so that the output was behaviour, error propensity and reaction time. Furthermore, a feedback mechanism was added to cater for adaptive behaviour. This work is extensively described in two deliverables. An inventory of driver support systems was used to select support systems (with a similar function in the three selected transport modes) to be tested in a large scale simulator experiments. This work is described in two separate deliverables (inventory & selection). The first experiment including car and train driver was carefully planned in order to harmonise the actual performance of the experiments which included six test sites and several test leaders and almost 300 test drivers. Two identical portable simulators for car and train driving were constructed within the project. The two simulators were circulated between partners in five different countries in order to conduct a cross-cultural experiment aiming to test the UMD model. Main effects were found for workload, culture and gender and interaction effects between culture and gender, personality and workload, personality and experience. Driver state (fatigue) did not have any effect which probably was due to too low level of fatigue. Thus, it was concluded that the UMD model could capture driver behaviour with the selected set of factors even if it was found that gender (not included in the model) was a factor that should be included in the future. Furthermore, two large scale advanced simulators were used to validate the results from the portable simulators. It was also found that the small scale portable simulators provided comparable results as the more advanced simulator. The results are described in a deliverable. The UMD model also constituted a foundation for developing a numerical simulation of driver behaviour. The human factors in the UMD model were handled as variables in the simulation and a generic function with these variables was developed and some basic constants were determined rather ad hoc. The SiMUD (the numerical simulation tool) was developed in parallel to the experiments and simulation results were compared to experimental results across transport modes (using regression analysis) and were found to be quite satisfactory and deviations were used to improve the simulation. This work is described in three deliverables with complimentary information together with experimental results. Finally, three new experiments were carried out in order to validate the UMD model in terms of predicting behaviour. The first was aimed at testing that the model was applicable also to the shipping domain. A full scale bridge simulator was used for the experiment and the results were satisfactory considering the differences between land and water transports. Furthermore, an experiment in an advanced car driving simulator with new driver support systems illustrated the validity of both the UMD model and the simulation tool, i.e. changes in a human factor yielded the same results e.g. high sensation seeker tend to drive at a higher speed then low sensation seeking driver. Similar results were achieved for train drivers using a different train simulator (compared to previous experiment). Thus, it was concluded that even if the UMD model needs further development (e.g. take gender into account) as well as the simulation tool (i.e. introduction of non-linear regression). The validation activities are described in two separate deliverables. All experimental data have been collected and organised in a database owned and maintained by the consortium. A MoU which regulates the exploitation of the database have been signed by the contractors. The database will be publicly available in 2014. The ITERATE work has been extensively presented at conferences, workshops and also appears in a book, proceeding from a workshop organised in the project. The dissemination work (website, logo, workshops, newsletters, business plan etc.) are described in six deliverables. There is also a final report which summaries the work conducted in ITERATE.
In recent years, a variety of drive/support and information management systems have been designed and implemented with the objective of improving safety as well as the performance of vehicles. While the crucial issues at a technical level have been mostly solved their consequences on driver activity remains open and needs to be fully explained. Of particular importance are their effects on driver behaviour and strategies, and their impact on the operation and safety of the traffic system. Thus, the main objective for the ITERATE project was to develop a unified model of driver behaviour (UMD) and the driver’s interaction with different support systems. The model should be applicable to all surface transport modes (road, rail and water) and include key operator factors (e.g. personality, experience, workload, and driver state) that capture a broad range of behaviour. The underlying assumption was that limited set of human factors could be used to model driver behaviour independent of transport mode. A comprehensive state of the art review of driver modelling efforts was initially carried out in the project. The most suitable model was found to be a model developed within the past AIDE project. This motivational model was further developed so that the output was behaviour, error propensity and reaction time. Furthermore, a feedback mechanism was added to cater for adaptive behaviour. This work is extensively described in two deliverables. An inventory of driver support systems was used to select support systems (with a similar function in the three selected transport modes) to be tested in a large scale simulator experiments. This work is described in two separate deliverables (inventory & selection). The first experiment including car and train driver was carefully planned in order to harmonise the actual performance of the experiments which included six test sites and several test leaders and almost 300 test drivers. Two identical portable simulators for car and train driving were constructed within the project. The two simulators were circulated between partners in five different countries in order to conduct a cross-cultural experiment aiming to test the UMD model. Main effects were found for workload, culture and gender and interaction effects between culture and gender, personality and workload, personality and experience. Driver state (fatigue) did not have any effect which probably was due to too low level of fatigue. Thus, it was concluded that the UMD model could capture driver behaviour with the selected set of factors even if it was found that gender (not included in the model) was a factor that should be included in the future. Furthermore, two large scale advanced simulators were used to validate the results from the portable simulators. It was also found that the small scale portable simulators provided comparable results as the more advanced simulator. The results are described in a deliverable. The UMD model also constituted a foundation for developing a numerical simulation of driver behaviour. The human factors in the UMD model were handled as variables in the simulation and a generic function with these variables was developed and some basic constants were determined rather ad hoc. The SiMUD (the numerical simulation tool) was developed in parallel to the experiments and simulation results were compared to experimental results across transport modes (using regression analysis) and were found to be quite satisfactory and deviations were used to improve the simulation. This work is described in three deliverables with complimentary information together with experimental results. Finally, three new experiments were carried out in order to validate the UMD model in terms of predicting behaviour. The first was aimed at testing that the model was applicable also to the shipping domain. A full scale bridge simulator was used for the experiment and the results were satisfactory considering the differences between land and water transports. Furthermore, an experiment in an advanced car driving simulator with new driver support systems illustrated the validity of both the UMD model and the simulation tool, i.e. changes in a human factor yielded the same results e.g. high sensation seeker tend to drive at a higher speed then low sensation seeking driver. Similar results were achieved for train drivers using a different train simulator (compared to previous experiment). Thus, it was concluded that even if the UMD model needs further development (e.g. take gender into account) as well as the simulation tool (i.e. introduction of non-linear regression). The validation activities are described in two separate deliverables. All experimental data have been collected and organised in a database owned and maintained by the consortium. A MoU which regulates the exploitation of the database have been signed by the contractors. The database will be publicly available in 2014. The ITERATE work has been extensively presented at conferences, workshops and also appears in a book, proceeding from a workshop organised in the project. The dissemination work (website, logo, workshops, newsletters, business plan etc.) are described in six deliverables. There is also a final report which summaries the work conducted in ITERATE.
