The effect of varying levels of vehicle automation on drivers' lane changing behaviour.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192190
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Summary
This study investigates how varying levels of vehicle automation affect driver behavior during non-critical, driver-initiated lane changes. While previous research has focused on critical take-over scenarios, this work addresses the gap in understanding performance during routine maneuvers like overtaking. The researchers compared three conditions: conventional manual driving, partially automated driving (PAD, SAE Level 2), and conditionally automated driving (CAD, SAE Level 3). In PAD, drivers had to disengage automation to manually overtake a slow vehicle, whereas in CAD, the system performed the overtaking maneuver upon driver initiation. The experiment utilized a driving simulator with 29 licensed participants in a within-subjects design. Each participant completed three drives on a simulated UK motorway, encountering 12 overtaking events per drive where a lead vehicle traveled 20 mph slower than the ego vehicle. The study measured objective vehicle control metrics, including indicator response time, lateral position deviation, speed variance, and lateral acceleration, as well as subjective system acceptance. Statistical analyses, including repeated-measures ANOVA, were employed to compare performance across the three driving modes. Results indicated that while drivers accepted both automated systems, they significantly preferred CAD over PAD. In terms of timing, drivers initiated overtaking maneuvers later in PAD compared to manual driving or CAD, likely due to the time required to regain situation awareness and disengage the system. Crucially, vehicle control performance degraded in PAD compared to manual driving. Drivers exhibited higher standard deviations in lateral position and speed, along with increased lateral accelerations, during lane changes following automation disengagement. These findings suggest that even in non-urgent situations, the transition from automated to manual control impairs driving smoothness and consistency. The significance of these findings lies in highlighting "out-of-the-loop" performance issues that extend beyond critical safety scenarios. The study demonstrates that resuming control from automation introduces measurable costs in vehicle handling, even when drivers have ample time to prepare. This implies that the shift from active participant to passive supervisor affects driver engagement and control quality during routine tasks. The results underscore the need for improved human-machine interfaces and transition strategies to mitigate performance decrements during driver-initiated take-overs, ensuring safety and traffic flow stability as automated vehicles become more prevalent.
Key finding
Drivers exhibited degraded vehicle control, characterized by increased lateral deviations, speed variance, and lateral acceleration, when resuming manual control from partial automation to perform lane changes compared to manual driving.
Methodology
simulator
Sample size: 29
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
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| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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Information type
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework