Objective: The aim of this special issue is to bring together the latest research related to driver interaction with various types of vehicle automation.
Background: Vehicle technology has undergone significant progress over the past decade, bringing new support features that can assist the driver and take on more and more of the driving responsibilities.
Method: This issue is comprised of eight articles from international research teams, focusing on different types of automation and different user populations, including driver support features through to highly automated driving systems.
Results: The papers comprising this special issue are clustered into three categories: (a) experimental studies of driver interactions with advanced vehicle technologies; (b) analysis of existing data sources; and (c) emerging human factors issues. Studies of currently available and pending systems highlight some of the human factors challenges associated with the driver-system interaction that are likely to become more prominent in the near future. Moreover, studies of more nascent concepts (i.e., those that are still a long way from production vehicles) underscore many attitudes, perceptions, and concerns that will need to be considered as these technologies progress.
Conclusions: Collectively, the papers comprising this special issue help fill some gaps in our knowledge. More importantly, they continue to help us identify and articulate some of the important and potential human factors barriers, design considerations, and research needs as these technologies become more ubiquitous.
Keywords: automated driving system; automation; autonomous vehicles; driver behavior; driver support; performance; safety; surface transportation.