Driving automation interface design: supporting drivers' changing role

Driving automation aims to enhance driving comfort and increase road efficiency. But in doing so it changes the driver’s role from actively operating the vehicle to supervising the system with the occasional necessity to intervene. The irony in this is that, while enhanced with automation, supervision is not a role humans are particularly good at. The aim of this study is to assess how drivers can be supported in their changing role. To evaluate potential improvements in driver support an assessment framework is designed and evaluated. Tests with five concepts provide insight in different interface features that support the driver. It shows that especially supervision benefits from coloured illumination of edges around the windscreen and side windows. Further design recommendations are taken from the tests’ results. While automated driving is intended to improve safety and raise comfort, this thesis addresses the persisting need to support the change in role of the driver. By doing so it delivers an important contribution to a more prevalent human-centred development of a future range of automated vehicles intended to take benefits from raised comfort and safety