The development of new technological applications within the cars progresses rapidly. Since the introduction of the car-phone and the increasing speed of micro-chips, more and more telematic applications are possible. Within a task such as driving a car through traffic the additive task of interacting with new applications could seriously affect road safety. Applications can also take over tasks previously performed by the driver. Safety consequences here can be positive as well as negative. Given the amount of different applications in development there is a need for an overall method to evaluate these systems on their road safety impact Evaluating systems after implementation is time and money consuming. So what we are looking for is a method to evaluate the new applications on road safety before implementation in traffic. We intend to provide a base for guidelines on which an evaluation is possible. Existing guidelines are based on the concept of comfort. The work discussed here is based on the relation between human-machine interaction and road safety. The transport research centre (AVV) of the Dutch Ministry of Transport, is developing guidelines of human-machine interaction for new in-car telematic applications. Several research institutes are involved in the program: SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, TNO Human Factors Research Institute and Traffic Research Centre (TRC) of the University Groningen. The Transport Research Centre (AVV) of the Dutch Ministry of Transport is co-ordinating and funding the projects. This report is based on the work of all above mentioned participants in the projects. (A)
Abstract