Identifying Traffic Context Using Driving Stress: A Longitudinal Preliminary Case Study

Abstract

Many previous studies have identified that physiological responses of a driver are significantly associated with driving stress. However, research is limited to identifying the effects of traffic conditions (low vs. high traffic) and road types (highway vs. city) on driving stress. The objective of this study is to quantify the relationship between driving stress and traffic conditions, and driving stress and road types, respectively. In this study, electrodermal activity (EDA) signals for a male driver were collected in real road driving conditions for 60 min a day for 21 days. To classify the levels of driving stress (low vs. high), two separate models were developed by incorporating the statistical features of the EDA signals, one for traffic conditions and the other for road types. Both models were based on the application of EDA features with the logistic regression analysis. City driving turned out to be more stressful than highway driving. Traffic conditions, defined as traffic jam also significantly affected the stress level of the driver, when using the criteria of the vehicle speed of 40 km/h and standard deviation of the speed of 20 km/h. Relevance to industry: The classification results of the two models indicate that the traffic conditions and the road types are important features for driving stress and its related applications.

Development of models for assessing a driver's failure­free operation in a transportation system under conditions of traffic congestion

“…The main results of this study are the developed mathematical models for the assessment of the reliability of the average driver on sections of a transport network (15) and at transport nodal points (16). The resulting model (17), which reflects changes in the driver's state due to being in a traffic jam, makes it possible to assess the probability of an accident on elements of a transport system after a traffic jam.…”

“…Study [15] presented data on the level of stress of a driver depending on traffic conditions and a type of a road. The authors noted that traffic conditions defined as traffic jams also affected the driver's stress level significantly when using a vehicle speed criterion of 40 km/h and a standard speed deviation of 20 km/h.…”

“…Since the intensities of traffic flows were accepted per hour in formula (15), and per day in formula (16), we can assume that they would be aligned during these periods and would be the same. Then the intensities of traffic flows with and without traffic jams will decrease or their ratio will be equal to a constant close to unity.…”

The Effects of the Driver’s Mental State and Passenger Compartment Conditions on Driving Performance and Driving Stress

“…The authors achieved an accuracy higher than 80% using this model. In [ 48 ], the authors wanted to analyze the relationships between driving stress, traffic conditions and road types. The authors proposed using electrodermal activity (EDA) signals to estimate the levels of driving stress taking into account the road type and traffic conditions.…”

A Comprehensive Survey of Driving Monitoring and Assistance Systems

“…In addition to driving safety, another emerging concept in vehicular technology is the comfort of the drivers. A driver’s mental and physical stress are studied in several studies (e.g., [8,9,10,11]) with the aim of providing a relaxed and comfortable driving experience. To achieve the target of safety and comfort, understanding and modeling of the driving environment which includes vehicle, driver, and surroundings has become a popular topic in multiple research areas.…”