Identification of Sensitive Driving Situations to Guide the Design of a Learning Tool for Automated Vehicle Drivers

This paper presents a research process aiming at studying the activity of drivers in automated vehicles (AV). To do this, we carried out in situ observations and conducted interviews with two different populations: professional and novice drivers in automated driving (AD). The results obtained by triangulation highlight a series of “sensitive” situations specific to automated driving. The clinical analysis of these situations shows changes in the relations and mediations involved. Some of them have common characteristics, making it possible to classify the sensitive situations identified. These changes require a potential adaptation of “traditional” driving schemes, necessary for the appropriation of the AV by the drivers. These results allow us to provide recommendations for improving AV prototypes, and to consider the design of a learning tool to support the appropriation of these systems. This device should, at a minimum, make it possible to familiarize vehicle drivers with sensitive driving situations, in order to initiate the transformation of their schemes upstream, and to cognitively relieve them in real driving situations.