Abstract
Background: This paper reports on the methodology undertaken and some results achieved within a study of drivers using aftermarket and nomadic devices (the TeleFOT project). Objective: To evaluate the methodology for conducting Field Operational Tests for Information and Communication Technology whilst also providing an example of the method applied in the context of mobility within the TeleFOT project. Methods: A ‘Top down, bottom up’ approach to the derivation of research questions and hypotheses is described. Statistical analysis has been undertaken on data collected through Field Operational Tests and Travel Diaries considering the impact of information functions (such as navigation, traffic information and green driving) upon journey length. Results: A summary of the results relating specifically to how the length of a journey can be affected by information functions indicates that Navigation and Traffic information can reduce the length of journeys whilst Green Driving functions tend to increase the journey length. Conclusion: The FOT methodology was successfully applied in the TeleFOT project as was the novel method for generating research questions. When turning the theoretical FOT method developed in FESTA into practice, several good innovations were made which can be recommended for future FOTs; collation of metadata, the use of comparable origin / destination pairs for analysis, centralised processing of raw data into legs in order to simplify the analysis of the huge datasets collected in the project.
Highlights
A Field Operational Test (FOT) is a relatively new concept in the field of road transportation and safety research
The purpose of this paper was to describe how the FOT method was implemented in the TeleFOT project and provide methodological recommendations for future FOTs
The FOT method applied in TeleFOT was successful in its objectives: to be able to utilise data collected from all of the test sites and to make conclusions based on harmonised analysis work over all test sites, datasets and functions
Summary
A Field Operational Test (FOT) is a relatively new concept in the field of road transportation and safety research. Recent examples of completed FOTs include the ISA [2], EuroFOT [3] and Co-gistics [4] projects Many such functions (in particular Information and Communication Technologies – ICT) are available on portable devices such as navigators and smart phones and the market penetration of these has been increasing rapidly [5]. The TeleFOT (Field Operational Tests of Aftermarket and Nomadic Devices in Vehicles) project was undertaken from 2008 to 2012 in order to understand in more detail how drivers interact with the devices and associated functions [6]. The TeleFOT project involved a number of large-scale pan-European FOTs with the collective aim to assess the impacts of driver support functions provided by nomadic devices on the driving task as well as on the transportation process as whole. This paper reports on the methodology undertaken and some results achieved within a study of drivers using aftermarket and nomadic devices (the TeleFOT project)
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