Abstract
Research on the influence of age on various automated driving conditions will contribute to an understanding of driving behavior characteristics and the development of specific automated driving systems. This study aims to analyze the relationship between age and takeover behavior in automated driving, where 16 test conditions were taken into consideration, including two driving tasks, two warning times and four driving scenarios. Forty-two drivers in Beijing, China in 2020 were recruited to participate in a static driving simulator with Level 3 (L3) conditional automation to obtain detailed test information of the recorded takeover time, mean speed and mean lateral offset. An ANOVA test was proposed to examine the significance among different age groups and conditions. The results confirmed that reaction time increased significantly with age and the driving stability of the older group was worse than the young and middle groups. It was also indicated that the older group could not adapt to complex tasks well when driving due to their limited cognitive driving ability. Additionally, the higher urgency of a scenario explained the variance in the takeover quality. According to the obtained influencing mechanisms, policy implications for the development of vehicle automation, considering the various driving behaviors of drivers, were put forward, so as to correctly identify the high-risk driving conditions in different age groups. For further research, on-road validation will be necessary in order to check for driving simulation-related effects.
Highlights
Received: 30 November 2021Nowadays, China is witnessing a major change in the proportion of older drivers in road traffic
The older age group was associated with a higher reaction time in takeover time (TOT) and control time (CT), where the older drivers reacted 0.6 s slower than the young and middle groups on average
We investigated the influence of age, driving task, warning time and driving scenario on the takeover time and takeover quality, where the takeover time was evaluated by the TOT and CT, and the takeover quality was evaluated by the mean speed (MS) and mean lateral offset (MLO)
Summary
Received: 30 November 2021Nowadays, China is witnessing a major change in the proportion of older drivers in road traffic. The number of drivers aged 60 and older has increased by 7.5 million in the past five years, and, by 2020, there were more than 15 million older drivers. It is controversially discussed whether the elderly have an increased involvement in accidents. Several studies have explored whether older drivers are more likely to make mistakes in driving and be at fault in a crash, using the method of statistical analysis. Older drivers differ from younger drivers in the types of crashes they have [1,2] and show compensatory driving behavior
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