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Distressed in the queue? Psychophysiological and behavioral evidence for two alternative car-following techniques.
Antonio Lucas-Alba1, Óscar M Melchor2, Ana Hernando1
1Departament of Psychology and Sociology, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/Ciudad Escolar s/n, 44003 Teruel, Spain.
Transportation Research. Part F, Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
|October 6, 2020
Summary
Drivers can reduce traffic congestion and improve road safety by adopting a new driving strategy called Driving to keep Inertia (DI). This method, unlike the common Driving to keep Distance (DD), helps offset traffic waves and ensures smoother traffic flow.
Area of Science:
- Traffic flow dynamics
- Human-computer interaction in driving
- Collective behavior analysis
Background:
- Traffic congestion is a major road threat, often linked to drivers following too closely.
- Traditional traffic flow models assume rational drivers maintaining safe distances, which may contribute to congestion.
- Alternative car-following (CF) strategies exist beyond the prevalent Driving to keep Distance (DD).
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the effects of two car-following strategies: Driving to keep Distance (DD) and Driving to keep Inertia (DI).
- To analyze how each strategy impacts individual driver behavior, emotional state, and visual attention.
- To assess the impact of these strategies on the road space occupied by a platoon of vehicles.
Main Methods:
- Thirty drivers participated in a driving simulator study, alternating between DD and DI strategies.
- Dependent measures included driving performance (speed, acceleration, fuel consumption, crashes), emotional state (skin conductance, self-reports), and visual behavior (fixations, dwell times).
- The study also evaluated the road space occupied by a platoon of 8 virtual DD followers.
Main Results:
- Both DD and DI were easily adopted, with similar average speeds but more variability and crashes in DD.
- DI required greater, dynamically adjusted, following distance and consumed less fuel.
- DI drivers showed less arousal, more dominance, and wider visual attention (to White Space Area) compared to DD drivers (focused on Bottom Rear Car).
Conclusions:
- Driving to keep Inertia (DI) offers a viable alternative to Driving to keep Distance (DD), potentially mitigating traffic congestion.
- DI strategy leads to smoother driving, reduced fuel consumption, and altered driver visual attention and emotional states.
- Despite requiring more distance, DI resulted in less road space occupied by a following platoon compared to DD.
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