Subjective and objective measures of vehicle handling:: Drivers & experiments

Recognising the need for improved understanding of links between subjective and objective measures of vehicle handling an extensive program of instrumented testing and driver evaluation was conducted with a view to correlating results from the different sets of data. The results suggested that each of eight test drivers tended to formulate ratings for specific handling questions in a unique manner which made it difficult to associate specific response metrics with particular aspects of handling. However it was noted that when a vehicle response did influence a driver's rating its effect on the ratings was largely the same regardless of the specific rating question being asked. By suitable averaging of these results it was possible to quantify the general effect on ratings that a given vehicle response parameter has. Those metrics with an always positive or always negative effect could potentially be utilised by engineers to build in favourable handling characteristics in the early stages of design then as the basis for trouble-shooting problems which arise in the later stages of vehicle development.