The application of electronics and communications technology to the vehicle environment has led to a great expansion of the facilities, functions and information potentially available to drivers. Much of the development has been undertaken in the European, American and Japanese collaborative research programmes such as DRIVE, the EUREKA Prometheus project, the Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems initiative and AMTICS (Advanced Mobile Traffic Information and Communication System). In the main, these developments are technology led, and although safety is a consideration it is clear that it is not the key issue. The human factors aspects of safety are concerned not only with the design of the man-machine interface, but also with the implementation of the systems in the vehicle, the sometimes unexpected effects of the use of the systems on the wider traffic environment and the essential safety critical nature of the systems. This paper addresses the role that human factors play in the safe design and implementation of advanced technology systems in vehicles and the likely effects of such systems on accident reduction. (A)
Samenvatting