Preliminary Human Factors Guidelines for Automated Highway System Designers. Volume 1: Guidelines for AHS Designers

Levitan, Lee; Burrus, M.; Dewing, Wende L.; Reinhart, William F.; Vora, P.; Llaneras, Robert E. · 1995 · ROSA P / United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Safety and Traffic Operations

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This document presents preliminary human factors guidelines for the design of Automated Highway Systems (AHS), developed by the Federal Highway Administration to facilitate a human-centered design process. The research addresses the critical need to integrate human capabilities and limitations into system design to maximize performance efficiency, ensure safety, and improve user acceptance. The authors argue that human error in system operation is often a direct result of designs that ignore human factors, citing misconceptions about human flexibility and a lack of exposure to relevant literature among engineers. The handbook aims to provide AHS designers with a systematic source of principles regarding human abilities, characteristics, and behaviors to apply during specific design phases. The guidelines were compiled through a comprehensive examination of existing handbooks, human factors engineering texts, and analyses from current research projects. The document structures the design process into distinct steps: identifying mission requirements, determining system functions, allocating functions between humans and automation, specifying functional requirements, determining interface philosophy, selecting controls and displays, designing those elements, and configuring the workspace. Volume I provides specific guidelines for controls (e.g., joysticks, pushbuttons, touch screens) and displays (e.g., CRTs, LCDs, head-up displays), tailored to the AHS context by removing irrelevant references and applying AHS-specific data. Volume II details user-system transactions for three distinct AHS scenarios: free agency/self-contained, barriers on the highway with grouped vehicles, and segregated highway with individual vehicles. These transactions outline the conditions, cognitive processing, and responses required for drivers entering, driving on, and exiting the automated system. Key findings include detailed specifications for preventing accidental actuation of controls, minimum character sizes for legibility across various display types, and recommended workspace dimensions based on anthropometric data. The handbook provides evaluation factors and tradeoff analyses for selecting appropriate controls and displays, offering "when to use" recommendations for each type. It also establishes guidelines for user-computer dialogues, including menu selection, command entry, and error handling, as well as operational guidelines derived from lessons learned in comparable mature systems. The document emphasizes that while the design process is presented linearly, it is iterative, requiring continuous modification as design teams gain information from later stages. The significance of this work lies in its provision of a standardized, evidence-based framework for AHS designers to reduce human error and enhance system usability. By offering preliminary guidelines that are specifically adapted for the automated highway environment, the handbook supports the specification of functional requirements, the determination of interface philosophy, and the design of driver workspaces. It serves as a critical resource for ensuring that AHS components conform to established human factors principles, thereby supporting the safe and efficient integration of automation into highway transportation systems.

Key finding

The report provides a comprehensive set of preliminary human factors guidelines for AHS designers covering controls, displays, workspace design, and user-computer dialogues to facilitate human-centered system design.

Methodology

review

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• ehmi external hmi
• hud ar windshield
• display design
• control interfaces
• odd communication
• vru facing ehmi

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Applied Guidance: design guidelines