The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute VTI driving simulator : validation studies. Paper presented at the Driving Simulation Conference DSC 1997, Lyon, France, September 8-9, 1997.

Three validation studies have been performed on the VTI driving simulator. The same measures of driving behaviour were used in all three studies, driving speed and lateral position. The first study compared driving behaviour on a real country road and on a simulated road with identical geometrical properties. Other traffic or road surroundings could not be simulated at the time of the study. Driving speed was found to be similar in both situations, whereas subjects positioned themeselves further away from the centre of the road in the real situation. The second study used the same road as the first study. Other traffic and road surroundings were simulated. Both driving speed and lateral position were similar in the real and the simulated situation. It was also found that the moving base system influenced the validity of lateral variation in a positive way. The third study compared driving behaviour in a real road tunnel and the same tunnel implemented in the driving simulator. It was found that subjects drove faster in the simulated tunnel than in the real one. They positioned themeselves somewhat further away from the nearest tunnel wall in the real tunnel than in the simulated version. Effects of independent variables were also studied. Elimination of speed information from the speedometer had similar effects on chosen speed in the real and the simulated tunnel. Differences between driving lanes regarding speed and lateral position were also similar in both situations. It was concluded that absolute validity was not quite satisfactory, especially for driving speed, whereas relative validity was satisfactory for both measures, which supports the usefulness of the driving simulator as a research tool in this area of research. (Author/publisher) (For the covering abstract for this conference, see IRRD 898349).