EFFECTS OF DISCRETE HEADWAY AND RELATIVE VELOCITY INFORMATION ON CAR-FOLLOWING PERFORMANCE

STUDIES WERE MADE TO DETERMINE WHETHER A DISPLAY PRESENTING CHANGING INFORMATION BEFORE THE DRIVER CAN SENSE CHANGE MIGHT IMPROVE CAR-FOLLOWING PERFORMANCE. THIS DISPLAY WOULD PROVIDE INFORMATION WHETHER THE DRIVERS HEADWAY WERE WITHIN A BANDWIDTH OR ERROR TOLERANCE ESTABLISHED BY THE EXPERIMENTER OR ELECTED BY THE DRIVER HIMSELF. ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE WAS USED TO TEST THE DATA. SUBJECTS, BANDWIDTH, AND TYPE OF DISPLAY WERE CONSIDERED AS MAJOR INDEPENDENT VARIABLES IN THE EXPERIMENT AS WELL AS THE INITIAL TARGET HEADWAY. THE DEPENDENT VARIABLES WERE THE HEADWAY VARIANCE AND RELATIVE VELOCITY VARIANCE OVER THE TRIAL. RESEARCH INDICATES THAT A DISCRETE LIGHT DISPLAY PRESENTING HEADWAY AND RELATIVE VELOCITY INFORMATION CAN IMPROVE CAR-FOLLOWING SYSTEM PERFORMANCE. BEST DISPLAY COMBINATION WOULD APPEAR TO BE THE SMALL BANDWIDTH FOR BOTH DISPLAYS. ABSOLUTE PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT AT CLOSE TARGET HEADWAYS SEEMS RATHER SMALL. AT CLOSE TARGET HEADWAY CONDITIONS, THE DRIVER MAY PREFER TO USE OTHER CUES THAN THOSE PROVIDED BY THE DISPLAY.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/hrr/1967/159/159-003.pdf
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Paper sponsored by Committee on Road User Characteristics and presented at the 45th Annual Meeting. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Authors:
  • Gantzer, Donald
  • Rockwell, T H
• Publication Date: 1967

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 36-46
• Monograph Title: Road user and vehicle characteristics
• Serial:
  • Highway Research Record
  • Issue Number: 159
  • Publisher: Highway Research Board

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Analysis of variance; Car following; Driver performance; Drivers; Headways; Information display systems; Information dissemination; Personnel performance; Velocity
• Old TRIS Terms: Displays; Relative
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00222676
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 20 1994 12:00AM