Take over Gradually in Conditional Automated Driving: The Effect of Two-stage Warning Systems on Situation Awareness, Driving Stress, Takeover Performance, and Acceptance

ABSTRACT Warning systems play a crucial role in the takeover of conditional automated driving. However, the widely used single-stage warning systems in takeover had inevitable and critical issues in situation awareness (SA), driving stress, and takeover performance. As such, two-stage warning systems might be an optimal solution to alleviate these problems. On this basis, this study investigated the effect of warning types (single-stage vs two-stage warning systems) and non-driving related tasks (NDRTs) (playing Tetris game vs monitoring automated systems) on takeover. A total of 32 participants were recruited to join our driving-simulated study. These participants responded to different types of takeover warning systems upon receipt while engaging in NDRTs. Simultaneously, the SA, physiology stress, takeover performance, and acceptance data of the participants were recorded. Results showed that the drivers exhibited higher SA, lower physiology stress, better takeover performance, and higher acceptance ratings in the two-stage warning systems than in the single-stage warning systems. In conclusion, two-stage warning systems are promising in improving takeover safety based on connected vehicle technologies in the future. These findings can provide some guidelines for designers and engineers when applying the warning systems in automated driving.