Preface to the Special Section on Human Factors and Automation in Vehicles
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Summary
This preface introduces a special section of *Human Factors* dedicated to the human factors challenges associated with highly automated vehicles. The authors, Natasha Merat and John D. Lee, argue that rapid advancements in vehicle automation are radically redefining the role of the driver. While Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) such as adaptive cruise control and lane keeping are becoming common, there is a critical gap in research regarding fully automated driving and the interaction between drivers and these complex systems. The paper aims to synthesize findings from ten studies to guide the design of future vehicles, emphasizing that automation cannot seamlessly substitute for human drivers. The special section comprises research from European and North American scholars, utilizing both simulator and naturalistic driving studies. The authors contextualize this work within broader trends, including the euroFOT project’s findings on ADAS acceptance and the emergence of vehicle-to-vehicle communication and driverless car prototypes. The reviewed studies examine various aspects of human-automation interaction, including driver adaptation, attention, fatigue, distraction, and social responses to technology. Specific methodologies include naturalistic field evaluations of truck drivers, simulator studies on forward collision warnings, and analyses of driver personality traits influencing adaptation to automation. The findings reveal two competing design philosophies: automating driving versus supporting driving. The "automate" approach often leads to delayed driver responses during critical incidents requiring intervention, a phenomenon known as resumption cost. Studies indicate that automation can exacerbate fatigue and distraction; for instance, drivers engaged in secondary tasks or experiencing fatigue showed slower responses to emergencies when automation was active. Conversely, "support" approaches, such as adaptive automation and haptic feedback for shared control, keep drivers engaged in the control loop, improving performance and reducing the risks associated with disengagement. Additionally, research suggests that automation designed to share goals with the driver fosters greater trust and acceptance. The authors conclude that driving safety increasingly depends on the combined performance of the human and the automation. Designers must recognize that automation changes the driver’s role, potentially encouraging distraction or disengagement. Successful designs must avoid piecemeal integration of systems and instead focus on coherent architectures that support the driver’s new role. The paper highlights the irony that automation handles routine tasks but requires rapid human intervention in critical situations, a mismatch that poses significant safety risks. Therefore, future research and design must prioritize orchestrating the transfer of control and supporting drivers who remain responsible for vehicle safety, ensuring that technology enhances rather than degrades overall driving performance.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| archive | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-09 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-09; verification: verified.
Topics
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- automation
- automation surprise
- automation complacency bias
- situational awareness
- driverless ads
- takeover transitions
Information type
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- Applied Guidance: design guidelines
- Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework, theory or model