The interaction between driving and in-vehicle information systems: Comparison of results from laboratory, simulator and real-world studies

The main objective of this study was to compare a standardised visual performance test in three driving research environments: laboratory, simulator and instrumented vehicle. The effects of a standardised secondary visual search task on the primary task, i.e. aspects of driving performance, were evaluated and compared between the three facilities. Results showed that for gross effects on performance indicators, aspects of lateral position control in the laboratory test gave a sufficient first indication of sizeable influence as soon as visual attention was diverted towards the secondary task. More subtle differences between levels of visual search difficulty were only found in the simulator and in the field. One main purpose of the EU project HASTE, which was the context of the present study, is to produce guidelines for and assess the suitability of each of the test environments for testing the effects of In-Vehicle-Information-Systems on driving performance.