Toward a High-Level Integrative Comfort Model in Autonomous Driving

Although the extant literature on comfort in the autonomous driving research is extensive, no integrative model has been proposed that includes major comfort-influencing factors and their interrelations. In this work, we conduct a literature review and elicit automation-related factors that directly influence a driver’s comfort. The 6 groups of factors include the driving environment, vehicle and automation, and the user’s activity, personality, and understanding of the system. We then structure these in a model comprising environment-, vehicle-, and user-related categories. The resulting framework supports framing research questions about comfort in automation.