Driver's Mental Workload in Parking Tasks

This paper describes a study undertaken to investigate a driver’s mental workload while parking. The authors studied three parking tasks: going in reverse to park, forward or pull-in parking, and backing out, which all drivers usually perform when parking their vehicle in their daily lives. They divided each task into the following four phases in order to analysis the time-series variations of the driver’s mental workload toward a specific point around the driver’s vehicle: approach to start location, approach to parking space, re-approach for adjustment, and adjustment in parking space. Subjective assessment was conducted in 21 participants (8 male; 13 female) just after a finish of one parking task; the authors chose four to six points at each phase of parking where the driver's vehicle may approach another vehicle closely, where drivers may feel strong anxiety, or where drivers must pay full attention. The authors report the results of these experiments, finding the points with high mental workload are changed according to the phase of the parking tasks and the three factors of the mental workload have high correlations at each phase. They conclude with a discussion of the influence of the difference of vehicle size on the variation of the driver’s mental workload; the tests were conducted with a sedan and a minivan. The influence of the vehicle size on the driver’s mental workload was found in a forward parking task and in a backward starting task.

• Corporate Authors:

  ITS America

  1100 17th Street, NW, 12th Floor
  Washington, DC  United States  20036
• Authors:
  • Okamoto, Shusaku
  • Nakawatase, Kojiro
  • Kishi, Yashio
  • Iwasaki, Morio
  • Takahashi, Akihiko
  • Sato, Toshihisa
• Conference:
  • 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and ITS America's 2008 Annual Meeting
  • Location: New York NY, United States
  • Date: 2008-11-16 to 2008-11-20
• Publication Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 12p
• Monograph Title: ITS Connections: Saving Time. Saving Lives

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Anxiety; Automobile drivers; Backing (Driving); Behavior; Crashes; Distraction; Evaluation and assessment; Field tests; Instrumented vehicles; Parking; Psychological aspects; Stress (Psychology); Vans; Vehicle size
• Uncontrolled Terms: Minivans; Sedans; Subjective assessment
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01140795
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 29 2009 8:57AM