EVALUATION OF DRIVING RISK LEVELS THROUGH KINEMATIC, DYNAMIC AND PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURES

Abstract

Driver behaviour plays a key role in balancing the interaction between the driver, the vehicle and the road environment. A correct evaluation made by the driver of the potential risks related to the road environment, can improve safety levels and contribute to prevent road accidents. However, risk assessment is a personal and subjective process that can be a ected by several factors, which can be classi ed as internal or external to the driver. Within this framework, the present PhD thesis aims to understand the effect of these factors on drivers' risk perception by means of an interdisciplinary approach based on driving kinematic-dynamic and psycho-physiological measures estimated in a virtual reality driving simulator environment. In some applications, the driving simulator is used in combination with other tools that aim specifically to detect psycho-physiological parameters. Five case studies are developed to analyse a number of four human factors. Regarding the internal factors, the present thesis investigates i) the gender difference, ii) the effect of alcohol and iii) the impact of fatigue on driving after a hospital night shift. In regard to the external factors, the effect of using mobile smartphones on the driving performance is studied. To this effect, two applications are carried out considering two different smartphone's activities, social network consulting and messages texting. For each study, a summary of results in terms of risk perception indexes and statistical tests are presented.