Investigating the Time Required by Remote Drivers to get into the Loop During Event-based Remote Takeovers

Abstract

Future traffic is expected to be shaped by Highly Automated Vehicles (HAV; SAE Level 4), which promise a wide range of benefits. However, achieving these benefits depends on overcoming traffic situations that are beyond the current technological capabilities of HAVs. Here, one approach could be to issue a take-over request to a remote driver (RD). In these events, the RD proceeds to take over the dynamic driv-ing task for the HAV remotely. This leads to challenges in getting the RD into a state of "being in the loop" (i.e., gaining situation awareness and subsequently taking con-trol without being physically present on site). These challenges can lead to potentially safety-critical RD task performance impairments. To date, this novel challenge has been largely unexplored. To address this gap, we propose to provide the RD with in-formation about the evolvement of the traffic situation, continuously gathered by the HAV. In addition, augmenting the video stream with sensory data gathered by the HAV could further support the RD. In an experimental user study in a simulator setting, we investigated how much leadtime the RD requires to get into the loop (i.e., to gain situation awareness). N = 47 participants encountered typical event-based remote driving tasks displayed in an urban traffic environment, presented either with or without visual augmentation. These tasks were presented with varying leadtime and traffic situation complexity. Findings contribute to the understanding of how much leadtime RDs require to enter the loop, thereby increasing safety of event-based remote driving.