The objectives of the Workpackage 2 of TRAINER project were to identify the problems of novice drivers in performing particular driving tasks causing their high involvement in accidents and to identify the most important gaps in current training curricula. Therefore different approaches were selected in order to gain an as complete as possible overview of this subject. For structuring the analyses the Michon driver behaviour model and the recently developed hierarchical model of driving behaviour of the European project GADGET were adapted. Firstly, a comprehensive bibliographical survey on current research on driver training and novice drivers as well as on recent developments in training tools was carried out. Secondly, accidents data, involving novice drivers from different EU countries, were gathered and analysed systematically, to support, contradict or supplement the hypotheses and suggestions derived from the literature analysis. An internal survey of existing multimedia tools was made in order to get a detailed overview of recent developments on this field and to establish gaps in the curricula of these tools. A survey of driving simulators summarises the characteristics of existing simulators found in the Internet in order to identify possibilities and limitations of these tools. As a next stage the results of the survey of existing training methodologies and driver instructors' needs (TRAINER Dl .2) were summarised to get an overview of existing driver training curricula in Europe. Lastly, the results of the European TRAINER workshop are presented in which experts from the transportation area (driving instructors, research institutes, simulator developers, as well as representatives of ministries and relevant authorities) were invited to comment the presented findings and plans and to make proposals for using tools regarding particular driving tasks. The results of these extensive analyses are summarised in order to identify the gaps in current training curricula as well as to draw conclusions for further development of the planned TRAINER training tools, i.e. the multimedia training tool and the driving simulator tool, and training curricula. A general conclusion deriving from the analyses is that future driver training should take into account or intensify training of perceptual and cognitive skills, i.e. scanning skills, and hazard detection. With regard to the GADGET matrix the driving task should be understood as a task involving also decisional and motivational aspects. That these higher level (i.e. strategic and behavioural) aspects play an important role in the involvement of novice drivers in accidents is clearly stated by recent research literature as well as by those experts participating in the TRAINER workshop: Novice drivers can have superior manoeuvring skills and still have many crashes. Teaching scanning and anticipating as well as self-evaluation skills appear to be promising ways to reduce accident rates of novice drivers. (Author/publisher)
Abstract