Driver mental errors committed due to inappropriate information processing are a major contributing factor in traffic crashes. Both increased and insufficient incoming information, raise the driver's mental workload, and cause dangerous driver behavior. Corresponding to driving tasks, all sources of information were classified into: Highway includes roadway design features, Traffic Control reflects traffic control system, and Traffic - characterizes impacts of other vehicles. Based on the analysis of principles of human information processing and investigation of the freeways in the major metropolitan areas of Texas, quantification criteria for the above-mentioned information sources and their typical combinations were identified. To determine whether relationships between driver information loads and crash rates can be found, over eighty thousand crashes which occurred on selected urban freeways were compared to information load rates. In the next stage, test driving of instrumented vehicle on the selected urban freeways representing typical combinations of information load were conducted. Based on the analysis of speed variations, frequency of intense braking, heart activity characteristics, eye-scanning processes, as well asa crash statistics analysis, freeway informational dimensions that cause abnormal driver responses were identified.
Abstract