ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an overview of the main theories and models of driver behaviour and performance. The interaction between the road environment and the road user is an important area to consider in order to ensure a safe and operationally efficient mobility of all road users. Driving involves three hierarchical task levels: viz. navigation, guidance and control. For each level, task load varies depending on time and place. At each level of the driving task, the successive steps of the cycle of human information processing-for example, perception, processing, decision making and action - take place. All these processes take time and have different time constants. Theeuwes introduced a good three-dimensional representation of the driving task, with the three hierarchical levels, the stages in human information processing and the different levels of task performance combined. For each individual driver, the way the task at each of the three hierarchical levels of the driving task is conducted may shift over time.