Information Needs and Visual Attention during Urban, Highly Automated Driving—An Investigation of Potential Influencing Factors

Abstract

During highly automated driving, the passenger is allowed to conduct non-driving related activities (NDRA) and no longer has to act as a fallback at the functional limits of the driving automation system. Previous research has shown that at lower levels of automation, passengers still wish to be informed about automated vehicle behavior to a certain extent. Due to the aim of the introduction of urban automated driving, which is characterized by high complexity, we investigated the information needs and visual attention of the passenger during urban, highly automated driving. Additionally, there was an investigation into the influence of the experience of automated driving and of NDRAs on these results. Forty participants took part in a driving simulator study. As well as the information presented on the human–machine interface (system status, navigation information, speed and speed limit), participants requested information about maneuvers, reasons for maneuvers, environmental settings and additional navigation data. Visual attention was significantly affected by the NDRA, while the experience of automated driving had no effect. Experience and NDRA showed no significant effect on the need for information. Differences in information needs seem to be due to the requirements of the individual passenger, rather than the investigated factors.

Improving Passenger Experience and Trust in Automated Vehicles Through User-Adaptive HMIs: “The More the Better” Does Not Apply to Everyone

“…Design requirements stated by passengers after their first system experience often relate to the in-vehicle presentation of drivingrelated information and reveal their need for system transparency to decrease their uncertainty (Hartwich et al, 2020). Thus, even though there is no actual need to monitor a higher-level automated vehicle, many passengers still wish to not be completely excluded from the driving process (Ekman et al, 2018) and to receive information on the vehicle's driving behavior (Feierle et al, 2020). In the research tradition on trust in automation, it is well-established that informing users about the status and behavior of an automated system can improve their level of trust (Lee and See, 2004;Hoff and Bashir, 2015).…”

“…So far, the implementation of users' information requirements and the user evaluation of resulting HMI concepts have mainly been focused on partially and conditional automated driving (SAE-Levels 2-3) due to the remaining human involvement in the driving task (Feierle et al, 2020;Oliveira et al, 2020). On these lower automation levels, an HMI serves specific safety-related purposes, such as supporting the human monitoring task or the transfer of vehicle control between human driver and automated driving system.…”

“…Such individual differences might also be reflected in passengers' need for system transparency during automated driving and should therefore be considered in the design of in-vehicle HMIs. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for user-adaptive HMI concepts meeting varying user requirements (Feierle et al, 2020) in order to provide a trustworthy and pleasant passenger experience for everyone.…”

From HMI to HMIs: Towards an HMI Framework for Automated Driving

“…Studies have shown differences in informational needs according to the automation level [7], traffic situations [11], and the individual passenger [12], as well as differences in the extent to which passengers show changes in driver state, for example, fatigue [13]. Therefore, the aHMI should adapt to the traffic context, passenger's state, information needs, and the individual differences of the passenger to ensure sufficient trust, acceptance, and safety for the DAS.…”

Does a Confidence Level for Automated Driving Time Estimations Improve the Subjective Evaluation of an Automation HMI?

“…No effects, however, were proven for workload and acceptance. According to Feierle et al [13], the degree of certainty with which the automation can cope with a situation is not relevant when no RtIs occur. However, with the ongoing research into automated driving with limited availability, concepts displaying the ability of the car to drive automated were assessed.…”