TRIAL VERIFICATION OF HUMAN RELIANCE ON AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF HUMAN FACTORS

Recently, there has been an increasing interest from automakers and other parties in developing autonomous vehicles. This study investigates the reliance of drivers on autonomous driving with regard to human factors as there have been limited studies that have investigated this aspect. With regard to eye movement, nearly all of the drivers tended to look toward the central area when driving a manual vehicle. Conversely, they tended to look to the left and right of the center during autonomous driving scenarios. With regard to the brake (preparation) behavior, the percentage concordance of nearly all of the drivers was from 13.3% to 49.2%. However, a driver focusing on the central area during autonomous driving had a percentage concordance of the brake preparation behavior of 98.8%, which is extremely high. These results indicate that there is a tendency for nearly all drivers to rely on autonomous driving systems; however, some drivers did not rely on them. When verifying the drivers' levels of sleepiness, it was found that all drivers tended to become sleepier over time during autonomous driving. Therefore, based on human factors, it appears that drivers tend to rely on autonomous driving systems.