The Importance of Interruption Management for Usefulness and Acceptance of Automated Driving

To increase the safety in use of automated vehicles, Human Factors research has focused primarily on driver performance during take-over situations. However, surveys on public opinion on automated vehicles still report a lack of acceptance of the technology. In this review, we give an overview on how taking the changed role of the driver into account when designing Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) of automated vehicles could increase the usefulness of the technology, which might in turn result in increased public acceptance. We propose that balancing the driver's need of being informed about the automated vehicle's status, actions and intentions with the desire to engage in non-driving related tasks (NDRTs) is likely to play an important role in this process.