A study among 1355 business drivers into the use of seven ITS/ADAS provisions [2] showed that four of them were hardly ever used. An important reason for not using them is that the drivers were not aware of their cars being equipped with these provisions. Figure 1 shows presence and usage of the provisions.
Figure 1. Presence of (dark blue), awareness of (pink) and usage of (yellow) ITS/ADAS for business drivers (Source: [2] ).
Cruise control (1276 of 1355) and integrated navigation (750) are common systems, which is apparent from awareness and usage: almost all respondents knew that the system was present in their cars and indicated using it. Emergency Brake was much less familiar (267) and fewer than half these respondents knew the system was available and ‘used’ it (in so far as ‘use’ is the appropriate word for this autonomous system). Fewer than one in ten of the business drivers questioned reported the presence of Lane Departure Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control, Traffic Sign Recognition or Distance Alert. Only very few were aware of the presence of these systems in their cars and used them. An exception was Traffic Sign Recognition, which a large majority knew and reported having used. The researchers conclude:
“The lack of awareness of ownership of ADAS currently appears to be the largest bottleneck for the breakthrough of ADAS usage. […] many drivers are not aware with which ADAS their car is equipped. When drivers are aware of owning a specific system they appear to be likely to use it. Even though it is not said that an increase of awareness of ADAS ownership will result in an equal increase in ADAS usage, it is, however, expected that stimulating awareness of ADAS ownership will result in increased ADAS usage.”
For the systems mentioned above, the lack of awareness and usage is not that serious with respect to road safety. The most relevant system is Emergency Brake which functions autonomously and therefore independently of the driver. The other systems are mainly driver comfort systems which may be expected to have only a limited effect on road safety. More relevant is that, for business drivers, systems specifically aimed at road safety are scarce, with the exception of Emergency Brake.
