SWOV homepage
Nederlands  

PhD projects in SWOV

 

SWOV frequently cooporates with Universities in the Netherlands by offering students the possibility carry out their PhD research within a SWOV project or within a project SWOV takes part in.

 

Presently, five PhD students from different universities work together with SWOV and their university on a variety of topics to complete their doctoral theses.

Two projects are subprojects of the BAMADAS research program (Behavioural Analysis and Modelling for the Design and Implementation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). The other projects study Elderly drivers, Emotions in traffic and Telematics and traffic safety.

 

Elderly drivers

Ragnhild Davidse combines her work for SWOV with writing her PhD-thesis at the University of Groningen. Her PhD-thesis is about the problems elderly drivers encounter in traffic and the possibilities of improving road safety for this group of traffic participants.
Older adult car drivers form a group of road users that is getting more and more attention in road safety research and policy. An important reason for this growing interest is the increase in the percentage of seniors in the future population, and the increase of the number of senior drivers as a result of both the increasing percentage of driving license holders among the older adults and senior drivers continuing to drive actively longer than before. The attention for senior drivers is also based on a concern for the road safety implications of a growing population of senior drivers.
Several studies have indicated that the typical accident of older adult drivers occurs while turning left at an intersection. To be able to prevent these accidents from happening, it is important to know which factors lead to the involvement of older adult drivers in this type of accident. Possible sources of causal factors are the general characteristics of elderly drivers, the characteristics of intersections and the compatibility of these two sets of characteristics. In this project, the focus is on the compatibility of the task demands of turning left at an intersection and the characteristics of the driver. The main questions are "what makes them (in)compatible?" and "how can we bring them closer together?".

 

Determinants of emotions in traffic and their effects on driving-related performance

Part of the work done within the SWOV project Emotions in traffic is a study carried out by Jolieke Mesken, for her PhD-thesis at the University of Groningen. The project has its origins in two areas: traffic research and emotions research. In the context of traffic, the research that has been done on emotions has focussed mainly on anger and aggression. However no systematic research has been carried out concerning the role of emotions, other than anger and aggression, in traffic. Emotion research mainly focusses on origins, processes, and functions of emotions. An area that until now did not receive much attention is the effects of emotions on performance. Many studies dealt with the effect of moods on cognitive processing, but they focussed on general positive versus negative mood, and not on specific moods and emotions. Also, these studies mainly used laboratory tasks concerning judgement, creativity or cognitive flexibility. An area open to a wide range of research, is how specific emotions (e.g. anger, sadness, happiness, pride, fear) influence complex and real life task performance, like driving. The present Phd-project aims to shed light on this issue by literature research and by carrying out a series of experiments.

 

Telematics and Road Safety from policy perspectives

The project Telematics and Road Safety from policy perspectives is a PhD-study in collaboration with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and is carried out by Ellen Jagtman.

Policy makers use criteria to evaluate developments, possibilities and choices. These criteria do not yet exist for Intelligent Transport System (ITS) applications, but they are of great importance considering the developments of applications like intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) or advanced cruise control (ACC).

This project aims to design these criteria or at least give the initial impetus to an effective formulation of the criteria. The fact that accident data do not yet exist because the applications are relatively new and developments are uncertain, complicates the project.

The present ITS developments are mainly initiated by industry and are usually aimed at one particular type of accident or factor. Head-tail collisions, alcohol interlock or speed adaptation are obvious examples.The effects on other road users, traffic and traffic safety are rarely considered in the developments. In this project these effects play a part whenever they are important for weighing up the pros and cons at the level of policy making.

In the course of the project, the HAZOP method (HAZard and OPerability method, originally used in the chemical industry) was adapted for traffic safety. A HAZOP systematically describes an intended process by weighing all parameters, possible deflections and consequences. The method is used in a top-down model which describes problems at different levels of government, and has thus become a tool in selecting the most effective of a number of measures.

 

Testing operational models and behavioural assumptions included in driving

Nina Dragutinovic who is writing her thesis at TU Delft, works on the project called TOMAS (Testing Operational Models and Behavioural ASsumptions Included in Driving), which is one of the six projects which are part of the BAMADAS programme, two of which are carried out in cooperation with SWOV. BAMADAS focuses on the interaction between man and machine when advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are used.

Much research and development focuses on an increasing variety of ADAS to  be introduced in road traffic. These systems involve the assistance and/or automation of various basic driving tasks (vehicle following, lane keeping, lane changing, proper speed keeping) based on modern technology. Although there are some expectations (assumptions) towards the influence of ADAS on driver behaviour already, there are still many uncertainties about their true effects. Project TOMAS aims to investigate the consequences of ADAS for behaviour with respect to the behaviour that drivers display in interaction with ADAS, with each other and with the road infrastructure environment. Knowledge about behavioural consequences and conditions for acceptance by the driver are considered crucial for the implementation of ADAS in the society.

 

Modelling Interaction Behaviour in Driving

Maura Houtenbos is also writing her thesis at the TU Delft and she works on the project called ASTIM (Advanced Safety Criteria Specification by Traffic Interactions Modelling). It is the second subproject of the BAMADAS program carried out in cooperation with SWOV. Most research on traffic behaviour has focused on the individual road user. Thus, most models of driving behaviour have been developed taking the perspective of one individual road user. However, interaction situations always involve more than one road user. Furthermore, most interactions involve time constraints. Thus, road users' expectations of the interaction situation must play a role in the interaction process. This study aims to achieve a more detailed understanding of interaction behaviour in traffic and develop a model, which describes the interaction process but includes more than one road user. Aspects of the interaction situation road users use to form their expectations are also investigated. Eventually, when a model has been developed which adequately describes the interaction process, it will be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of road users in this process. Subsequently, the impact of (potential) Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) on the interaction process can be assessed.

 

More information about BAMADAS can be found on the website http://www.bamadas.tbm.tudelft.nl/
SWOV Research Activities 23 - September 2003

Knowledge base