Technology fuels safer driving
Drivers are bombarded with information. Road signs and speeding traffic compete with the vehicle's own instrumentation and electronic devices, like GPS navigation and mobile phones, for the driver's attention. All these distractions can result in accidents. The 'Communication multimedia unit inside car' (Comunicar) project sought to reduce this risk by developing a human machine interface (HMI) which filters out information sent to the driver. The HMI 'makes decisions' based on driving conditions and driver workload. The Comunicar project was divided into two phases: developing the HMI and then testing it. The tests were evaluated based on usability, acceptance, workload and safety impact during laboratory, simulation and real driving tests. Two cars were selected for these tests: the Alfa Romeo 147 and the Volvo S60. Advanced driver assistance systems, such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and collision avoidance systems, were innovatively presented through acoustic or visual displays. The HMI was adapted to see how best to display the information using a software unit called 'Information manager' (IM). This then displayed data on the basis of avoiding overlapping and contrasting information being sent to the driver. The IM chose if and when any piece of information (from speedometer readings to radio settings) was delivered to the driver and how to solve overlapping information. The results were good, as the tests met both the usability and the expected users' acceptance requirements. As a result, drivers' workload was reduced which was shown to have a positive effect on road safety.