Book Review: Driver Reactions to Automated Vehicles: A Practical Guide for Design and Evaluation

Automated vehicles do not belong to the realm of science fiction anymore. With automated vehicles now being a reality, an appropriate communication between driver/operator and the vehicle is of vital importance. At least at present, and most probably, in the near future, automated vehicles cannot cope with all the road and traffic conditions. Therefore, the driver must remain attentive to the automated driving system as they may be called upon to take control of the vehicle unexpectedly. On the other hand, when the road conditions are proper for automated driving, the driver may be asked to transfer the control back to the automated system. The time duration from a control transfer request by the automated system until the driver fulfills it, that is, the control handover time, the factors affecting this time, the driver reactions to the request, and the methods to improve the communication between driver and the vehicle to decrease the control transfer time are the subject of this book by Eriksson and Stanton. After a complete review of the history of automated vehicles, this book mostly presents the details and results of recent studies by the authors examining the control handover time from automated vehicles to driver and discusses the important human factors affecting that time. The experiments were carried out both in driving simulators and on open roads. The authors compare the results with those from previous studies by others. For the first time, these studies present results on transition time from manual to automated driving modes. In describing the results from several experiments, the authors identify the effective human factors in the control handover time and suggest applicable methods to reduce this time in automated vehicles. Examples of these factors are the human-machine interface, the driver being with/without a secondary task preceding the control transition, takeover request lead time, and previous experience of driver with automated vehicles. Their research also justifies the use of driving simulators as a safe and controllable method to evaluate driver reactions to automated vehicles, which agrees with previous results. After discussing the human–automation interaction and its challenges, the authors introduce a new approach by extending the linguistic principles of human-human communication to the domain of human-automation interaction and treating the automated driving system as a codriver whose task is to provide the necessary and sufficient information about the system state for the driver. However, automated vehicles are a new phenomenon with few incidents. Therefore, when looking for examples to clarify their point, the authors do not hesitate to use two famous incidents from the world of aviation, namely the Air France Flight 447 incident in May 2009 and the Comair Flight 3272 case that happened in January 1997. The examples are discussed minutely and clearly demonstrate the subject to the reader. The topic of the book is narrow and specialized. For the experts in the specific field of automated vehicles it is a rich source of up-to-date information about the roles of different human factors in the control handover time between driver and automated vehicles. The authors also share their valuable experience about conducting experiments with human subjects. It is a good source for beginners, those who want to learn how to plan and conduct similar experiments and gain insight as to what to expect from them. Regarding the crucial importance of the subject of the book, it also is a must read for scientists and engineers working on the design and manufacturing of automated vehicles. The authors’ research on the control handover time between driver and automated vehicle shows that this time is longer than reported by most of the researchers. However, the authors do not mention clearly what are the reasons behind those discrepancies. Also, I think most of the readers prefer to see the same system of units being used throughout a book which makes the comparison of the results more convenient. However, in the plots and tables presented, both the international (SI) and U.S. customary systems of units are used to measure distance and speed. Even with these minor shortcomings, this book clearly shows the importance of different human factors in future automated transportation.