Model of Driving Skills Decrease in the Context of Autonomous Vehicles

The aim of this presentation is (1) to define the skills necessary to control the driving of an autonomous vehicle; (2) skills needed to tackle the errors and failures of an autonomous vehicle and (3) to propose the operationalization of these skills. The view on driving skills decrease is built on the theoretical hierarchical model of driving behavior "GDE" - Goals for Driver Education model". This can be used as the theoretical basis for measuring the decline in driving skills. The model is then put together with knowledge about human behavior and its changes in the context of automation and autonomous mobility. This definition and measurement suggestion is the first step in the long run of tackling the issue of reducing driving skills in the context of autonomous driving. Increase in automation promises a lot of benefits but on the other side, it also brings a decline in human ability to drive. It is a well-known finding of cognitive psychology that not using skills may cause forgetting and gradual loss of that ability or skill. Therefore, there have been some concerns connected with excessive automation in various areas of human lives for some time. But the topic of the automation and the pitfalls associated with it is not a new issue. For example, Bainbridge a long time ago drew attention to possible problems. Automation limits gaining experiences that can be needed when the control is needed to be passed back to the human operator. Even autopilot monitoring itself is based on the skills acquired by operators from experience with manual control, and future generations of operators who only gain experience from overseeing automats and autopilots will no longer have such. The model, which will be presented takes into account all above-mentioned aspects of driving in the automation era.