Highlights ► Road design and road scenery impair alertness and driving performance. ► Driving performance can be used as surrogate for alertness. ► Countermeasures can focus on technological approaches using surrogate measures.

    Abstract Drivers’ ability to react to unpredictable events deteriorates when exposed to highly predictable and uneventful driving tasks. Highway design reduces the driving task mainly to a lane-keeping manoeuvre. Such a task is monotonous, providing little stimulation and this contributes to crashes due to inattention. Research has shown that driver’s hypovigilance can be assessed with EEG measurements and that driving performance is impaired during prolonged monotonous driving tasks. This paper aims to show that two dimensions of monotony – namely road design and road side variability – decrease vigilance and impair driving performance. This is the first study correlating hypovigilance and driver performance in varied monotonous conditions, particularly on a short time scale (a few seconds). We induced vigilance decrement as assessed with an EEG during a monotonous driving simulator experiment. Road monotony was varied through both road design and road side variability. The driver’s decrease in vigilance occurred due to both road design and road scenery monotony and almost independently of the driver’s sensation seeking level. Such impairment was also correlated to observable measurements from the driver, the car and the environment. During periods of hypovigilance, the driving performance impairment affected lane positioning, time to lane crossing, blink frequency, heart rate variability and non-specific electrodermal response rates. This work lays the foundation for the development of an in-vehicle device preventing hypovigilance crashes on monotonous roads.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Driving performance impairments due to hypovigilance on monotonous roads


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2011-05-20


    Size :

    10 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





    Driver hypovigilance diagnosis using wavelets and statistical analysis

    Santana Diaz, A. / Jammes, B. / Esteve, D. et al. | IEEE | 2002


    DRIVER HYPOVIGILANCE DIAGNOSIS USING WAVELETS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

    Diaz, A. S. / Jammes, B. / Esteve, D. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002


    A new hybrid dianosis system application to hypovigilance detection

    Hernandez, N. / International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997


    System architecture of a driver's monitoring and hypovigilance warning system

    Amditis, A. / Polychronopoulos, A. / Bekiaris, E. et al. | IEEE | 2002