Automated driving is expected to improve traffic safety. One of the main challenges for conditionally automated driving is to ensure a safe transition from automated driving to manual control, particularly when the driver is engaged in non-driving related secondary tasks. The aim of this study is to investigate the response time in the crashes in emergency take-over situations during conditionally automated driving. A driving simulator study was carried out and forty-eight drivers were recruited. The take-over request was set at 3 s, 4 s, and 5 s. Drivers had to resume vehicle control in emergency take-over scenarios while fully engaging in secondary tasks. The results showed that the secondary tasks significantly decreased the hands-on time for both the crash and non-crash cases, however, the secondary tasks significantly decreased the brake reaction time for the non-crash cases, but did not show a significant effect for the crash cases. The news task and the video task seem to have similar effects on the response process. In addition, the response times for the crash cases was significantly larger compared to the non-crash cases. These results are of potential interest to the design of safe automated driving systems.

CICTP