AUDITORY WARNING SIGNALS FOR CRASH AVOIDANCE WARNING DEVICES

Three experiments are described that address issues related to the choice of auditory signals for use in vehicle crash avoidance warning systems. Intelligent sensing devices are under development for addressing a range of common crash situations, such as rear end collisions, run-off-road collisions, or blind spot collisions. It is important that the warning interface be effective in eliciting rapid and appropriate reactions from the driver, and that drivers find the systems, even given the inevitable nuisance alarms, to be acceptable. Since auditory signals are likely to be the primary mode of warning for crash avoidance applications, they are the focus of attention here. The first experiment identified a set of important attributes of good auditory signals, and developed order-of-magnitude weights for each attribute based on the formal collection of a broad range of expert opinion. The second experiment presented a collection of acoustic and voice warning signals to listeners in a laboratory setting, and collected ratings of each sound for each of eleven different signal attributes. The attribute weightings from the first experiment were used to derive an overall rating for each sound. A set of promising warning signals was identified, and general characteristics of effective warnings were suggested. The final experiment evaluated the annoyance of intrusive auditory alarms when drivers experience them in their own cars over a nine week period. This experiment found that subjects were generally willing to accept random nuisance alarms that occurred at a rate in the range of once per four hours to once per one hour. Voice nuisance alarms were less tolerable. Several acoustic stimuli appear reasonable as candidates for a consensus imminent crash warning sound. For example, stimulus 8 in Experiment 2 was highly rated on warning attributes and was also well tolerated in terms of annoyance in Experiment 3. Together, the studies suggest that the ITS community can and should develop some consensus on what a crash avoidance warning sounds like and how it should be used. This will promote the use of an effective, driver-acceptable warning, that will be readily interpretable from product to product and vehicle to vehicle.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Full conference proceedings available only on CD.
• Corporate Authors:

  ITS America

  1100 17th Street, NW, 12th Floor
  Washington, DC  United States  20036
• Authors:
  • Lerner, N
  • Steinberg, G
  • Perel, M
• Conference:
  • Merging the Transportation and Communications Revolutions. Abstracts for ITS America Seventh Annual Meeting and Exposition
  • Location: Washington, D.C.
  • Date: 1997-6-2 to 1997-6-5
• Publication Date: 1997

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: n.p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acceptance; Acoustic signal processing; Audible warning devices; Automobile drivers; Crash avoidance systems; Drivers; Human factors; Intelligent transportation systems; Reaction time; Sensors; Warning signals
• Uncontrolled Terms: Driver reaction
• Old TRIS Terms: Acoustic signals; Auditory signals; Imminent crashes
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00742356
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Nov 13 1997 12:00AM