Mental Workload, Longitudinal Driving Behavior, and Adequacy of Car-Following Models for Incidents in Other Driving Lane

Abstract

The values on parameters describing longitudinal driving behavior in car-following models differ substantially between drivers. Different individual interactions with the environment are assumed to play an important role, which might be explained through mental workload. Therefore a driving simulator experiment with a repeated measures design was performed to investigate to what extent perception of an incident in the other driving lane influences physiological indicators as well as subjective estimates of mental workload and longitudinal driving behavior. As almost none of the current models of car-following behavior incorporate mental workload as a determinant of driving behavior, an investigation was conducted by using a calibration approach for joint estimation to determine whether these models, represented by the intelligent driver model and the Helly model, adequately described longitudinal driving behavior in case of incidents in the other driving lane. The results indicated that perception of an incident in the other driving lane influenced mental workload as measured by physiological indicators and longitudinal driving behavior. In addition, the results indicated that current car-following models did not adequately describe driving behavior in case of incidents in the other driving lane.