What makes a good team? - Towards the assessment of driver-vehicle cooperation

With the introduction of driving automation, the driving task has become a shared task between driver and vehicle. Today, an increasing amount of driving tasks can be performed by the automation and the view of driver and automation acting as collaborative partners has been well established. Although this notion has been adopted in the research and design domains, means to assess the quality of the driver-automation interaction in a structured way are still lacking. Moreover, most design evaluations are usually addressed either from a technical stance or from a human factors viewpoint, which does not comply with a general acknowledged view of a unified driver-vehicle system. The aim of the current study is therefore to investigate the possibility to quantitatively evaluate the quality of the driver and vehicle cooperation. Seven dimensions indicative for the quality of cooperation are identified, based on a literature survey and expert input during focus groups. This work potentially supports road authorities, legislation, regulation and original equipment manufacturers to monitor, evaluate and design driver-vehicle cooperation.