Citation

Portouli E, Nathanael D, Marmaras N. Ergonomics 2014; 57(12): 1795-1805.

Affiliation

a Sector of Industrial Management and Operations Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, Ergonomics Unit , National Technical University of Athens , Zografou , Greece.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00140139.2014.952349

PMID

25204887

Abstract

Social interactions with other road users are an essential component of the driving activity and may prove critical in view of future automation systems; still up to now they have received only limited attention in the scientific literature. In this paper, it is argued that drivers base their anticipations about the traffic scene to a large extent on observations of social behaviour of other 'animate human-vehicles'. It is further argued that in cases of uncertainty, drivers seek to establish a mutual situational awareness through deliberate communicative interactions. A linguistic model is proposed for modelling these communicative interactions. Empirical evidence from on-road observations and analysis of concurrent running commentary by 25 experienced drivers support the proposed model. It is suggested that the integration of a social interactions layer based on illocutionary acts in future driving support and automation systems will improve their performance towards matching human driver's expectations. Practitioner Summary: Interactions between drivers on the road may play a significant role in traffic coordination. On-road observations and running commentaries are presented as empirical evidence to support a model of such interactions; incorporation of drivers' interactions in future driving support and automation systems may improve their performance towards matching driver's expectations.

Language: en