Trade-off between jerk and time headway as an indicator of driving style

PLoS One. 2017 Oct 17;12(10):e0185856. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185856. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Variation in longitudinal control in driving has been discussed in both traffic psychology and transportation engineering. Traffic psychologists have concerned themselves with "driving style", a habitual form of behavior marked by it's stability, and its basis in psychological traits. Those working in traffic microsimulation have searched for quantitative ways to represent different driver-car systems in car following models. There has been unfortunately little overlap or theoretical consistency between these literatures. Here, we investigated relationships between directly observable measures (time headway, acceleration and jerk) in a simulated driving task where the driving context, vehicle and environment were controlled. We found individual differences in the way a trade-off was made between close but jerky vs. far and smooth following behavior. We call these "intensive" and "calm" driving, and suggest this trade-off can serve as an indicator of a possible latent factor underlying driving style. We posit that pursuing such latent factors for driving style may have implications for modelling driver heterogeneity across various domains in traffic simulation.

MeSH terms

  • Acceleration
  • Accidents, Traffic / prevention & control*
  • Accidents, Traffic / psychology
  • Adult
  • Automobile Driving / psychology*
  • Automobile Driving / statistics & numerical data
  • Computer Simulation
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Simulation Training / methods*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland grants 279827 and 279905 (TL). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.