Does vehicle automation effect drivers’ situation awareness when engaging in non-driving tasks?
Vehicle automation is expected to have a range of safety and environmental benefits. The potential safety benefits of automated driving may, however, be impacted by a range of human factors issues that lead to unexpected changes in driver behaviour. It is possible, for example, that vehicle automation may lead drivers to engage more frequently in non-driving tasks due to an increase in their spare attentional capacity. Research has shown that engagement in non-driving tasks can lead to poor situation awareness when driving manual vehicles. However, it is not well understood whether the harmful effects of distraction on situation awareness will be exacerbated by increasing levels of driving automation. This project will make use of the MUARC automated driving simulator facilities to examine if vehicle automation influences the relationship between distracted driving and situation awareness under both normal driving conditions and take-over events.
This thesis would be supervised by Dr Kristie Young and Dr Amanda Stephens.
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