DRIVER WORKLOAD COMPARISONS AMONG ROAD SECTIONS OF AUTOMATED HIGHWAY SYSTEMS. IN: HUMAN FACTORS IN DRIVING, SEATING, AND VISION

This study compares driver's workload among automated highway systems (AHS) road sections in order to predict and compare the workloads imposed by the change of driver-vehicle interface and vehicle control authority. The study was conducted in a virtual AHS environment based on a real Korean expressway. Road sections included the manual lane, the transition lane to enter the automated lane, the automated lane, the transition lane to enter the manual lane after the end of automated driving and the post-AHS manual lane. The results indicated changes in driver workload brought about by automated driving. Automated lane speeds did not affect the driver workloads among road sections. This means that the increased reaction time, galvanic skin response, eye blink frequency, steering entropy, mental workload and vehicle speeds were affected by the control authority changes of AHS driving. Driver workloads significantly increased in the transition lane compared to the AHS road sections, suggesting that the design of transition lanes should be carefully considered in order to increase driver safety and comfort through the reduction of driver workload and speed.