Abstract:  An evaluation method was investigated to assess driver reliance characteristics on forward collision warning systems based on a driving simulator to improve driving safety in adjacent vehicle cut-in situations. Using alarm timing (time to collision, TTC) as the control variable, driving behavior data from 12 participants were collected in adjacent vehicle cut-in situations. Two objective indexes (brake reliance index and secondary task index) and two subjective indexes (risk level index and trust level index) were proposed to establish the evaluation system model to realize the quantitative evaluation of driver reliance level on the systems. An L9(34) orthogonal experiment was designed and conducted. Regression models of driver reliance indexes were established. The results show that alarm timing is the most significant factor affecting driver reliance. A late alarm (TTC = 2.4 s) degrades the effectiveness of the systems, while an early alarm (TTC = 1.2 s) causes drivers’ over-reliance on the systems. Therefore, appropriately delaying the alarm timing (TTC = 1.8 s) can improve driver reliance for safety considerations.

Key words: driving safety ,  forward collision warning system ,  driving behavior ,  driver reliance , alarm timing , adjacent vehicle cut-in situation