Safe road trains for environment: Human factors' aspects in dual mode transport systems

After being widely applied in aviation, automation is increasingly applied to surface transportation. Furthermore, with the increased reliability and reduced cost of electronics and communications, it is becoming viable to develop a safe and reliable platooning system. These intelligent systems of the future will contribute to improved safety, efficiency, and journey time of vehicles while at the same time reducing stress for passengers. However, although new technologies make vehicle platooning possible, these new technologies will require interaction with drivers. Therefore, the development of appropriate Human - Machine Interfaces (HMI) progressively assumes greater importance, as diverse and innovative technologies are designed and implemented in vehicles. As a result of this interaction there is a need to research human aspects and the HMI. The main objective of this study consists of analyzing human aspects involved in vehicle platooning. Accordingly, this paper describes the human factors issues that come into play when introducing autonomous driving. A further study objective is to develop a high-quality HMI, and assess the effectiveness of the HMI, including the acceptability level from possible end-users point of view. This study is part of the European project "Safe Road Trains for the Environment, SARTRE", that aims to define several platoon requirements attributable to the driver's opinion, as well as to define the necessities to develop an appropriate HMI for a platooning environment. This takes into account information coming from objective parameters, logged during the simulation tests, and the driver preferences derived from acceptability assessment.