Influence of the Relative Position of Surrounding Traffic on Drivers’ Take-Over Performance

For SAE Level 3 of automated driving (AD), human drivers are considered as the potential fallback and are expected to take over the vehicle when the system issues a take-over request (TOR). Thus, the evaluation take-over performance with regards to driving safety is the key to designing Level 3 AD systems. This study discusses the influence of the relative position of surrounding traffic on drowsy drivers’ take-over performance. An parameter of the relative position, which is defined as the average of the shortest distances between the ego vehicle and the surrounding vehicles (ASDESV) was proposed. Through objective and subjective methods, the ASDESV was proved appropriate to evaluate the influence of the relative position of surrounding traffic on take-over performance and longer ASDESV was proved to conduce to better take-over performance. This study proved that the relative position of surrounding traffic had important effects on take-over performance and driving safety.