01518815

Component

In-vehicle technologies could facilitate safe driving by providing monitoring and feedback on driving behavior. Several studies have already shown that feedback from technologies can be used to moderate risky behavior of young drivers. However, it is still unclear how to motivate young drivers to adopt such technologies outside the “research laboratory”, and whether parents’ presence is a “must”. The exponential growth in smartphones’ use, and especially among young drivers, holds great opportunities and potential; as these devices incorporate sensors such as global positioning system (GPS), accelerometers, and camera - they can serve as in-vehicle monitoring and feedback devices and thus reduce adaptation barriers related to installation complexity and cost. Still, the question remains: will young drivers download and use it in real life? This paper describes an attempt to motivate young drivers to do so. The authors describe lessons learned from a small-scale field experiment involving teen drivers. In this experiment, teens were offered to participate in the pilot and drive safer. Although it was a voluntary action, all 24 teens meeting the participation conditions chose to participate when offered an appealing incentive. Their driving information, recorded by a specialized smartphone application and their attitudes, as conveyed in interviews, are described. It was interesting to note the overwhelming acceptance and use of the application, however, once the rewards have been claimed – participants stopped using the application. The advantages and disadvantages of smartphone based feedback compared with traditional in-vehicle data recorders, as well as suggestions for large scale experiments are discussed.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB30 Operator Education and Regulation.

01503729

14-2594

English

15p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Attitudes; Behavior; Driver monitoring; Driver performance; Motivation; Smartphones; Teenage drivers

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-2594

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 2:54PM