The Effects of Interruption on Takeover Performance in Automated Vehicles

Abstract

As autonomous driving technology developing, the role of human driver becomes a passive passenger in an automated vehicle. Drivers would perform non-driving related tasks instead of driving, especially multitasking.. However, most of studies did not considered multitasking as NDRTs. In this study, experiment considering self-interruption is conducted and investigate effects of interruption on takeover performance. To investigate effects of interruption on takeover performance, experiment using driving simulator was conducted. Watching a short video was selected as a NDRT and there were three conditions of NDRT according to self-interruption: ‘Baseline’, ‘Monitoring condition’, and ‘Smartphone condition’. Takeover performance was measured by eyes-on time and deactivation time. There was no statistically significant difference for eyes-on time depending on interruption. However, interruption has a significant effect on deactivation time. Also, it was more effective to use a smartphone during interruption.