TactiCar: towards supporting drivers during lane change using vibro-tactile patterns

While deciding if it is possible to overtake a slower car, drivers have to take several factors into account. Accident statistics show that many drivers make mistakes in this sit-uation. We want to assist drivers during lane change deci-sion without raising his or her mental workload. Since vision is already highly loaded to assess the situation, we address vibration in this work and investigated if it is possible to con-tinuously inform drivers about a closing car using a vibro-tactile belt. We developed two different tactile patterns and tested them in a driving simulator. Both patterns achieved promising results regarding usability. In the future, we plan to refine the patterns and evaluate the impact on workload and safety.