ABSTRACT
During research conducted for Chapter 4, it was found that no research into control transitions had taken place on public roads, and that contemporary on-road research in automation either focussed on sub-systems such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) or on other automated features on test tracks. Consequently, there is very little research being done on the open road that can serve as a validation for the findings from research carried out in simulators worldwide. In an effort to establish validity for research on control transitions in the simulator, the Southampton University Driving Simulator and the algorithms in Chapter 3, this chapter examines whether the findings from Chapter 4 can be transferred to open-road driving conditions. A between group comparison was carried out of the data collected for Chapter 4 in the simulator using the algorithms from Chapter 3 and a group of drivers driving A Tesla Model S with the Autopilot feature. The driving task in the on-road element of the study was replicated to the furthest extent to match the passive monitoring condition used in Chapter 4. The results showed strong correlations between the distributions of control transition times from manual to automated, as well as from automated to manual control. Consequently, it can be concluded that the driving simulator is a valid research tool for studying Human Factors of automated vehicles and this lends validity to research into control transitions carried out in the simulator already disseminated in the scientific literature. Moreover, the findings in this chapter lend validity to the algorithms presented in Chapter 3 and to the Southampton University Driving Simulator.
