Research on Allocation of the Driver's Attention on the Tunnel Sections of a Mountain Freeway

Abstract

The research used Eye Link II system to obtain the driver’s eye movement data on the tunnel sections (the non-tunnel section, the short tunnel section, the group tunnels section, and the super long tunnel section) of a mountain freeway. Allocation of drivers’ attention is divided into five parts (instrument panel, the right signs and right mirror, left lane, right lane, and left mirror). Analysis and comparison of the four kinds of sections on the driver’s attention to the allocation of access to outside information on the differences in the five parts, came to the conclusions: (1) The percentage of fixation count and the percentage of average fixation duration of the driver’s attention to the instrument panel in the short tunnel section, the tunnel group section and super long tunnel section are more than the non-tunnel section; (2) The percentage of fixation count and the percentage of average fixation duration of the driver attention to the right signs and right mirror in the short tunnel section, the tunnel group section and long tunnel section are lower than the non-tunnel section. From the conclusions about driver’s visual characteristics, some improvement measures for the traffic environment in the tunnel sections have been proposed.