Australian Naturalistic Driving Study (ANDS)

About 1,300 people die and 33,000 more are seriously injured each year on Australian roads and the estimated cost of road trauma to the Australian community is about $27 billion a year. Most evidence about crashes and road trauma comes from data collected after the event by the Police, coroners, hospitals, and licencing and registration authorities.

In this study, 360 volunteer drivers (180 from New South Wales and 180 from Victoria) will have their private vehicle equipped with a data collection system for 4 months. The system will silently record a participant's driving behaviour (e.g. where they are looking), the behaviour of their vehicle (e.g. speed, lane position) and the behaviour of other road users with whom they interact (e.g. other drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians) in normal and safety-critical situations.

Each data collection system will incorporate multiple sensors (video cameras, a still camera, GPS, radar, accelerometers, etc.) to provide a complete picture of driver, vehicle and road user behaviour in all driving situations.

For more information, visit the Australian Naturalistic Driving Study website.

Meet the Melbourne team at MUARC

The Melbourne project is led by Professor Judith Charlton, Associate Professor Sjaan Koppel and Dr Kristie Young

The equipment will be installed in your vehicles by MUARC Technical Officers Yik-Xiang Hue and Andrew Lyberopoulos.

The tests and questionnaires will be administered by MUARC Research Assistant Rachel Osborne.

ANDS Technology

The unobtrusive and compact equipment to be installed in each driver's car for a four-month long period.

The equipment includes:

• Video cameras that continuously monitor the roadway ahead and behind the vehicle
• Video camera to record where the driver is looking at
• Still camera to take an occasional blurred snapshot of the vehicle interior to determine the number of passengers without identifying them
• GPS to provide the location of the vehicle
• Lane tracker software to detect deviations from lane
• Front radar to detect distance to the vehicle in front and track up to six independent targets
• Accelerometer to detect sudden stops, starts and turns
• Sensors to detect ambient light, temperature and swerving, and use of turning signals
• Alcohol sensor to detect the presence of alcohol in the car, although not its source
• Mobileye sensor to detect if the car is speeding, is too close to the car in front, about to have a collision or veer off-road

Note: The sensors will not issue any warnings nor prevent collisions from occurring. Audio will not be recorded unless the driver pushes a red button to describe an incident such as a near miss or a crash.

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