The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) is glad to be a partner in MEDIATOR since it is a project that will combine what we know about driver impairments and vehicle automation to bring out the best of both the driver and the automation system. We are also happy about the cross-modality work that will help us to benefit from lessons learnt in aviation, rail and maritime.
The Human Factors group at VTI has a long research history investigating how drivers are affected by sleepiness and inattention in manual driving. In MEDIATOR we look forward to advance our understanding of driver fatigue and inattention in relation to increasing levels of automation. New real road data collections with alert and fatigued drivers in test cars with and without automation are much needed, and it is VTI’s role in the project to carry out these data collections. The first data collections will be conducted in the beginning of the project to facilitate algorithm development. Eventually, VTI will also be responsible for the independent final evaluation of the MEDIATOR system.