STUDY ON DRIVER’S PREVIEW DISTANCE BASED ON DRIVING SIMULATOR TESTS

Several simplified driving models used nowadays assume that the drivers’ preview distance is mainly dependent on the vehicle speed. The scope of this paper is to analyze the behavior of a sample of drivers during a lane change test, evaluating specifically the evolution of their preview distance. In order to undergo this study, the tests are performed in a DiM400 dynamic driving simulator installed at Politecnico di Milano. The preview distance is measured while performing a specially designed test, divided in straight and double lane change sections, at a constant speed of 80 km/h. Furthermore, a wearable eye tracker is used to acquire the data from the drivers’ eyes. Finally, a simple method to estimate the preview distance under the testing conditions of this project is undergone. Opposite to what it is mainly stated in the literature, it can be observed a clear variation of the preview distance along each of the tests performed in the simulator. Drivers seem to increase it when driving straight, while they reduce it considerably to perform the double lane change maneuver. The algorithm developed in this paper provides an easy estimation of this quantity, although several limitations must be taken into account.