How users of automated vehicles benefit from predictive ambient light displays

With the introduction of Level 3 and 4 automated driving, the engagement in a variety of non-driving related activities (NDRAs) will become legal. Previous research has shown that users desire information about the remaining time in automated driving mode and system status information to plan and terminate their activity engagement. In past studies, however, the positive effect of this additional information was realized when it was integrated in or displayed close by the NDRA. As future activities and corresponding items will be diverse, a device-independent and non-interruptive way of communication is required to continuously keep the user informed, thus avoiding negative effects on driver comfort and safety. With a set of two driving simulator studies, we have investigated the effectiveness of ambient light display (ALD) concepts communicating remaining time and system status when engaged in visually distracting NDRAs. In the first study with 21 participants, a traffic light color-coded ALD concept (LED stripe positioned at the bottom of the windshield) was compared to a baseline concept in two subsequent drives. Subjects were asked to rate usability, workload, trust, and their use of travel time after each drive. Furthermore, gaze data and NDRA disengagement timing was analyzed. The ALD with three discrete time steps led to improved usability ratings and lower workload levels compared to the baseline interface without any ALD. No significant effects on trust, attention ratio, travel time evaluation, and NDRA continuation were found, but a vast majority favored the ALD. Due to this positive evaluation, the traffic light ALD concept was subsequently improved and compared to an elapsing concept in a subsequent study with 32 participants. In addition to the first study, the focus was on the intuitiveness of the developed concepts. In a similar setting, results revealed no significant differences between the ALD concepts in subjective ratings (workload, usability, trust, travel time ratings), but advantages of the traffic light concept can be found in terms of its intuitiveness and the level of support experienced.