D9.1 Report on vehicle survey operator needs

In the era of digitization, technology developments have been making massive and detailed operator performance data easily available, thus upscaling transport technology into a new level of challenging conditions and drastically transforming the framework of operator-vehicle-environment interactions. Consequently, the need for increased understanding of the human factors – distraction, fatigue and drowsiness, health concerns, extreme emotions and sociocultural factors – affecting the behaviour of operators, and the harmonization of them with the current state of transport and data technology, create an opportunity to detect and design customised interventions to mitigate road risks, increase awareness and dynamically upgrade road operators’ performance.

The project entitled ‘Safety tolerance zone calculation and interventions for drivervehicle-environment interactions under challenging conditions’ — ‘i-DREAMS’ aims to setup a framework for the definition, development, testing and validation of a context-aware ‘Safety Tolerance Zone’ for driving, within a smart Driver, Vehicle & Environment Assessment and Monitoring System (i-DREAMS). This framework should translate into new road safety interventions, improved driver well-being and transfer of control between human and vehicle, as well as a more eco-efficient driving style since safer driving implies an eco-friendlier behaviour.

Taking into account, on the one hand, driver-related background factors (age, driving experience, safety attitudes and perceptions, etc.) and real-time risk-related physiological indicators (e.g. fatigue, distraction, stress, etc.), and on the other hand, driving task-related complexity indicators (e.g. time of day, speed, traffic intensity, presence of vulnerable road users, adverse weather, etc.) a continuous real-time assessment will be made to monitor and determine if a driver is within acceptable boundaries of safe operation (i.e. safety tolerance zone).

Initial testing will take place in a driving simulator environment after which promising interventions will be tested and validated under real-world conditions in a testbed consisting of 600 drivers in total across 5 EU countries. Market roadmaps will be developed to support smooth transition of the investigated technologies to the market and experience from use cases in different European countries will be used to disseminate best practices.