Adaptive Cruise Control: A Categorical Imperative to the New World in 21ST Century?

Abstract

With the new millennium upon us, vehicle automation devices such as Adaptive Cruise Control are being offered by major motor manufactures. Over the last five years, the development of these systems has been reflected by the increasing number of publications in technical journals. However, there does not seem to have been a similar effort in the ergonomics literature devoted to the effects of vehicle automation on driving performance. The current paper investigates whether driving performance with automation changes across levels of driver skill. This issue raises substantial practical concerns. As vehicle automation becomes commonplace, the demographics of the driving population which have access to it will become increasingly variable. Therefore, the results are interpreted with respect to issues of litigation and training for inexperienced drivers with automation.

Keywords: adaptive cruise control, automation, ergonomics, technology, steering.