Research database

Decreasing the road accident fatalities is one of the main goals of the European Commission, and is part of several national and international strategic research programmes (e.g., H2020). Automated vehicles (AVs) will provide an opportunity to improve road safety and interaction among road users. The classification of AVs varies from manual driving (level 0) to full automation (level 5). In the level 2 (partially automated driving, PAD) and level 3 (conditionally automated driving, CAD), which will be the next levels of vehicle automation on public roads, the drivers still have an important role. However, it is expected that his/her behaviour will change by changing the automation level. Hence, the main objective of the DIRECTIONS project consists of bridging the wide gap in knowledge not filled by the current scientific literature on the effects of the next vehicle generation on driver behaviour and safety effects on all road users. This objective will be carried out through a set of experiments at a driving simulator aimed at investigating the effect of road features on drivers’ behaviour and safety for PAD and CAD. More specifically, the effect of road geometrics, traffic variables, and driver characteristics on the gap-acceptance and driver performance with PAD and CAD will be modelled. The outputs of DIRECTIONS will help to understand whether existing roads will be safe in the future, or if some geometric characteristics of roads need to change, or even new design rules should be introduced. Furthermore, automotive engineers will improve assistance and human interface systems to let them be safer and easier to be used. The fellowship will be carried out at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy) under the supervision of Dr. Marco Bassani leader in Road Design and Road Safety and a secondment at University of Granada (Spain) with the help of Dr. Leandro Luigi Di Stasi leader in Neuroergonomics as co-Supervisor.