Vehicle Automation Field Test: Impact on Driver Behavior and Trust
DOI: 10.1109/itsc45102.2020.9294751
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study addresses the gap in research regarding driver behavior and trust in highly automated vehicles under real-world conditions. While most existing studies rely on driving simulators, this work investigates how drivers interact with automation when performing secondary tasks in a naturalistic environment. The primary research question asks whether drivers trust automated capabilities while engaged in non-driving activities. The authors hypothesized that road features and secondary tasks would not affect trust, and that reaction times to Take Over Requests (TOR) would be independent of the specific secondary task performed. The experimental design involved a field test with 13 participants (after discarding two due to data noise) driving a research vehicle equipped with a Lane Keeping System (LKS) on a closed track in Germany. Participants drove at 60 km/h with the LKS active while performing one of three conditions: a baseline (no task), a visual task (reading a tongue twister aloud from a smartphone), or a visual-manual task (writing a text on the smartphone). A TOR was triggered 20 seconds after the driver removed their hands from the steering wheel. Data acquisition utilized vehicle CAN bus data and internal cameras to measure eyes-on-road frequency, average gaze duration, and reaction time to the TOR. Post-task questionnaires assessed self-perceived trust and situational awareness. Data processing employed ROS 2 nodes for semi-automatic analysis, followed by statistical testing using SPSS. The results rejected both initial hypotheses. Secondary tasks significantly impacted driver behavior and trust. Drivers looking at the road less frequently and for shorter durations during the writing task compared to the reading or baseline conditions. Reaction times were significantly slower for the writing task (mean 1.206 seconds) than for the reading task (1.031 seconds) or baseline (0.738 seconds). Road features also influenced behavior; drivers increased their gaze frequency toward the road when approaching curves, indicating heightened concern. Qualitative data revealed an inverse relationship between task complexity and trust: participants reported higher trust during the baseline and lower trust during the demanding writing task, despite objective measures showing they were more immersed in the automation during the latter. Prior experience with automated systems did not correlate with behavioral outcomes. The study concludes that secondary tasks and road features critically influence driver trust and readiness to resume control. Writing on a smartphone proved particularly dangerous, causing prolonged visual distraction and slower reaction times, yet paradoxically associated with lower reported trust. The findings highlight a discrepancy between objective engagement and subjective trust, suggesting that drivers may become overly immersed in complex secondary tasks while remaining skeptical of the system. These results underscore the necessity for Driver State Monitoring Systems to account for specific secondary task types and road geometry to ensure safe handovers in automated driving scenarios.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-25 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| enrich | success | openalex | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-25 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-26 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data, self report data
- Methodological Resource: tool software