Impact of Secondary Task Immersion Duration on Take-Over Process of Conditional (L3) Automated Vehicles in an Off-Ramp Area

Abstract

Exploring the influence of secondary task immersion duration on the take-over process is an important task in the research on conditional automated driving (SAE, L3). In this paper, with the tool of driving simulation, two different secondary task types and take-over request (TOR) times were designed for the ramp area take-over scenario. Forty-two participants were recruited to conduct driving simulation experiments. Based on the K-means algorithm, different immersion durations of secondary tasks were clustered. Three driving indicators, namely speed, lateral offset, and accelerator pedal depth, were selected to characterize the take-over performance. Then the influence of immersion duration on the take-over response time and take-over performance was analyzed. The effect of different immersion durations on the section traffic operation during the take-over process was then investigated with the help of VISSIM software. The results showed that the TOR time had no significant effect on the take-over response time, and the take-over response time was positively correlated with the immersion duration. At the beginning of the take-over process, the take-over performance of drivers between different immersion durations was different, for example, the average speed of the vehicle is lower when the immersion duration is low. In the take-over process, the driver’s take-over speed and accelerator pedal operation intensity are negatively correlated with take-over urgency. The immersion duration of secondary tasks has different degrees of influence on the efficiency of section traffic flow. With the improvement of immersion duration level, the average vehicle delay on the road section also increases to a certain extent.