In this document proposals are made for some preliminary specifications for on board units (OBU's) of electronic fee collection systems to be used in the Dutch measure of `Rekeningrijden'. The proposals concerns the usability for road users. Within the notion of usability a discrimination is made between functionality, ergonomics and road safety. The results are mainly based on literature research, Internet search and expert opinions. Therefor those results not referring to existing standards are limited in scope. Results indicate that functionality of the OBU should support self interest of the OBU users, enlarge the experienced trustworthiness of the system and be as consistent as possible with existing and comparable systems. Furthermore from the ergonomic point of view the system should be self explaining and easy to handle. Readability in various light conditions and audibility in various noise conditions should be guaranteed and be conform existing standards. Finally from the road safety point of view interaction with the OBU should be kept to a minimum while driving. All necessary interaction and information transfer while driving should be driver paced and not system paced (i.e. the driver determines the timing and duration of interaction with the system and timing of collecting the offered information). Naturally the OBU should not distract the driver from his primary task of driving the vehicle. This report is an in between result of an ongoing research project on the usability of the OBU. In the final chapter the next activities of this project are briefly described. (A)
Abstract