Situational Awareness and Systems for Driver-Assistance

Low level of driver’s situation awareness (SA) and high level of cognitive load are considered as reasons of vehicle accidents. Cognitive load is higher when driving abroad because of unfamiliarity with differences in international traffic rules or vehicle configurations. This paper aims to objectively assess the driver’s SA when performing lane changing tasks under unfamiliar driving conditions. We conducted an experiment using a right-hand driving simulator and a left-hand simulated traffic scenario to collect the temporal information about SA such as time, location, and speed as well as lane changing errors. Overall, the participants show low SA in curved roads and road networks, but high SA in straight roads. The results state that speed does not affect the lane changing performance on straight roads and road networks but significantly affects the lane changing performance on curved roads. These findings can be used to design a SA system for driver-assistance in unfamiliar driving conditions considering drivers’ cognitive load.