Text a Bit Longer or Drive Now? Resuming Driving after Texting in Conditionally Automated Cars

TL;DR

This study investigates how drivers resume control in conditionally automated cars after texting, examining the influence of priorities, time budgets, and strategies on takeover performance and timing.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how different takeover strategies are selected and their effects, considering cognitive demands and driver priorities in simulated driving scenarios.

Findings

Takeover strategy choice is influenced by priority and time budget.

Takeover strategy does not affect takeover quality or NDRT engagement.

Strategy impacts takeover timing but not performance quality.

Abstract

In this study, we focus on different strategies drivers use in terms of interleaving between driving and non-driving related tasks (NDRT) while taking back control from automated driving. We conducted two driving simulator experiments to examine how different cognitive demands of texting, priorities, and takeover time budgets affect drivers' takeover strategies. We also evaluated how different takeover strategies affect takeover performance. We found that the choice of takeover strategy was influenced by the priority and takeover time budget but not by the cognitive demand of the NDRT. The takeover strategy did not have any effect on takeover quality or NDRT engagement but influenced takeover timing.