RESEARCH PROGRESS

Workpackage 1

• Five pilot studies have been conducted to assess participants' performance on a number of tasks requiring visual attention, vigilance and memory.
• Task difficulty was manipulated by increasing the number of items processed.
• Baseline results will be used to assess the effect of tasks requiring different levels of perceptual and cognitive demand on driving performance.

Workpackage 2

• The experiments were designed to evaluate the interaction between secondary tasks and driving.
• Two 'surrogate-IVIS' tasks were developed: One task was designed to apply a systematic visual load ('Arrows'), while the other examined the effect of a systematic non-visual cognitive load on driving (auditory Continuous Memory Task).
• The two surrogate IVIS tasks were tested across different road types, using a range of driving simulators and instrumented vehicles.

  Workpackage 3

• The objective of this WP was to apply the methods used in WP2 to a number of 'real' systems in order to recommend a test regime for the safety assessment of IVIS
• To examine the utility of recognised checklists as part of the test regime, the TRL checklist was used to evaluate the selected systems.
• The scenarios and measures used in this WP were based on the findings from WP2. For instance, following a meta-analysis of the WP2 results, it was possible to draw conclusions about the types of road environment and behavioural measure that were most sensitive to changes in workload.