This paper discusses various aspects of `requirement profile', defined as the sum of the efforts required from a driver to satisfy road traffic demands. It first discusses the relationship between `requirement profile', `driver fitness' and `tests'. It then briefly considers a few of the many different scientiific approaches, described in the literature, to establish a requirement profile's tasks or at least some of its elements. The `face validity' approach seeks requirements like perception, attention and reaction, that researchers as drivers consider relevant to driving. This approach can be evaluated more scientifically by reviewing the test procedures used in experimental studies. The paper also considers the following approaches: (1) accident analysis; (2) validation studies; (3) the use of tests that have previously been shown to predict accident rates among drivers; (4) validating tests of a special drug; (5) driver behaviour analyses. The authors finally present their theoretical conception for compiling a requirement profile. It should include elements of all levels (strategic, manoeuvring, control), and elements that are derived after thorough discussion of the different steps from perception to action. By scanning all selected road traffic situations, this procedure will lead to a comprehensive traffic profile.
Abstract