Human Factors findings presented at road safety conference
Seeing Machines’ Chief Scientific Officer, Human Factors, Mike Lenné presented at the Australasian Road Safety Conference (ARSC) in Sydney in October. The conference theme – Towards Zero! – provided the perfect setting for the presentation of initial findings from two of Seeing Machines’ Human Factors programs.
With a range of industry experts and policy makers in attendance, ARSC was the perfect platform for Seeing Machines to contribute to important road safety conversations.
Christine Mulvihill, Research Fellow from the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC), presented initial findings from our joint road safety project with MUARC, Ron Finemore Transport and Volvo trucks.
The Advanced Safe Truck Concept study is an industry-led initiative with the ambitious but crucial goal of reducing heavy vehicle crashes in Australia and ultimately making roads safe for all users. The two-phase study uses naturalistic data that is key to understanding how drivers interact with their vehicles and the impact of driver fatigue and distraction. Christine presented findings from phase 1 which indicate a considerable link between driver drowsiness and safety risks.
Meanwhile, Mike presented early data from our world-leading automated vehicle trial, CANdrive.
The race to full vehicle autonomy is well and truly on, and with automakers introducing new vehicles with increasing levels of autonomy, it is vital to understand when and why a human should be in control. The ACT Government sponsored CANdrive trial is progressing quickly, and Mike discussed the extent to which autonomous vehicle features resulted in drivers increased off-road attention. Findings and data from the CANdrive program will assist Seeing Machines to improve our Driver Monitoring System technology. It will also provide valuable information to government and industry to fuel significant discussion required to create suitable road safety policy for semi and fully autonomous vehicles.
