00:00 Images:
Sat Nav on dashboard
Traffic
towards
Exts
University of Nottingham school of Computer Sciences & IT
Volunteer
into Simulator
Guide Voice: Many people now swear by their
in-car satellite navigation systems, pointing out how much easier
it is than struggling with a map. Fortunately however, most people
pull over to map read, but despite all manufacturers recommending
that they shouldn’t, many people now try to adjust their
Sat-Nav systems while driving along, which creates a real danger of
traffic accidents, so if hand-held mobile phones use is banned,
shouldn’t they be too?
A research team from the school of Computer Science and IT at
the University of Nottingham, led by Dr Gary Burnett, is using a
purpose-built driving simulator to study how the use of different
Sat-Nav systems affects the driving of members of the public of all
ages. The key issue in a safety critical road situation is whether
the design of these computer systems makes them a distraction and
if so, how much of a distraction?
00:49 SOT Dr Gary Burnett, Lecturer in Human and
Computer Interaction, University of Nottingham -
“Visual distraction is obviously an issue when
you’re bringing in a computer display into the car that
people need to look at while driving, the biomechanical physical
distraction of your hand off the wheel and having to press buttons
etc, while driving and then there’s the cognitive, mental
distraction associated with having to think about things, so if
you’ve got for example a navigation system confusing voice
messages that the people don’t really understand ‘what
is it trying to tell me?’ ‘what is this distance
– 500 feet? How far away is that?’ people are confused
by that, that can provide a cognitive distraction and that can have
an effect on their driving as well.”
01:35 Images:
Volunteer in simulator
Researcher
monitoring volunteer in simulator
CU
of sat-nav in simulator
Wide
of simulator
Guide Voice: Simply placing the system in a
position which forces a driver to look away from the road is an
obvious problem, but there are many others.
The research team’s initial studies of this area of
“Human-Computer Interaction", (HCI) show marked
differences in the software design of different systems, which has
significant safety implications, for example, the same functions
that took just eighteen seconds to complete on one system took
almost a minute to do on another.
The complexity of the system design, how many buttons to press,
how many levels to go through to access different commands, and how
many glances away from the road, are all distractions the
researchers were able to measure and compare, while studying how
people’s driving altered, with some straying into other lanes
or into the central reservation.
02:19 SOT Dr Gary Burnett - “If you
deviate out of lane then you’re a hazard to those around you
and there are clear safety implications. The other thing that high
levels of distraction lead to is that it affects you ability to
respond to an unexpected event such as the car in front suddenly
slowing down or a pedestrian walking out in front of you. All of
those things have been found in our research and other
peoples’ research and so it’s absolutely critical that
systems are designed to minimize distraction.”
02:52 Images:
GVs of Japanese streets and traffic
Researcher
monitoring simulator
CU
simulator screen
Volunteer
in simulator
Guide Voice: In Japan, where the technology has
been available for twenty years, over 3.5 million vehicles have
systems installed, and in the late nineties the Japanese transport
ministry began to identify accidents caused by drivers distracted
by their route guidance displays.
Today all cars for sale in the Japanese market have standardised
the controls of in-car navigation systems, so that many functions
are blocked once the vehicle is in motion. While the
Nottingham team’s research continues, the marked disparities
between systems suggests that similar steps may be needed in other
countries too, as the use of Sat-Nav systems grows in
popularity.
While the Sat Nav systems danger area is in information overload
for the driver, there are a number of other computer advances being
introduced into cars which may take too much control away from the
driver, like adaptive cruise control and automatic lane keeping
systems, which could result in driving “underload” with
the driver not involved enough…
03:51 SOT Dr Gary Burnett -"We need to
look for some kind of happy medium between underload and overload
– the driver needs to be involved enough so that they
don’t just switch off from driving and read a book or fall
asleep, they need to be engaged to monitor displays and realize the
importance of this. And at the same time we don’t want
systems to be so overly complex that people don’t understand
them and they take their eyes off the road too much and are not
engaged enough with the core driving task.”
04:29 Images:
CU sat-nav in car
Man
in car on the road
Guide Voice: So whatever computer enhancements
we introduce in the future, its still crucial that its the humans
who are in the driving seat!
04:37
ENDS
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