Evaluation of Driving Education Methods in a Driving Simulator

This paper presents the development of a realistic driving simulator and its use in the study of driving education methods. In this study, a large set of persons without driving license will be used. Each person will be submitted to a driving course that may include driving lessons in a real car and / or in the driving simulator. The realism used in the simulation can be adjusted between the classical non-interactive, film based training and the full realism achieved by our driving simulator. Each driving education method will be evaluated by comparing driver’s competence before and after the applied course. We expect to determine the influence of the simulation realism in the learning process, and to understand how and when the driving simulator should be used for better performance in the education process.