ABSTRACT
Following the lead set by the aviation industry, simulators have been developed for both research and training for road vehicle drivers. There are cheap ones, expensive ones, large ones and small ones; many are operated by experienced and knowledgeable staff, some are not. In short, a wide variety of systems exist that can be described as a driving simulator and it can be difšcult to distinguish those that might be useful and promote realistic behaviour and effective learning experiences. This chapter attempts to trace some of the factors driving the current development of simulators and also looks at ways in which they could be categorised in terms of their function rather than just in terms of their cost or their technical performance.
