Trmpn. Rcs.-C. Vol. I. No. 2. pp. lOWO6, 1993 Printed in Great Britain.

o940aw93 56.00 + .oo 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd.

BEHAVIORAL AND HUMAN FACTORS ISSUES IN ADVANCED TRAVELER INFORMATION SYSTEMS

WOODROW BARFIELD Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, U.S.A.

and

FRED MANNERING Department of Civil Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 U.S.A.

Advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) encompass a wide range of advanced technology approaches to highway congestion mitigation. The potential of ATIS to make a significant contribution to the problem of transporting people and goods, and the amount of funding being directed toward ATIS, has attracted attention from researchers in engineering disciplines as well as behavioral science fields. Unfortunately, the multi-disciplinary nature of the involvement, and the diversity of the subject, has resulted in research that can be characterized as highly dispersed and broadly focused, and not having a suitable common forum for researchers from diverse backgrounds to share their work. This is not unexpected, given a comparatively new and rapidly developing multi-disciplinary field, but the lack of a common forum has resulted in redundancy among research efforts and a slew of publications distributed among major trans- portation-related journals and numerous conference proceedings.

This special issue presents a collection of papers focused on a specific topic: the role that behavioral science and human factors issues play in the development and implementation of advanced traveler information systems. The role that human factors design rules and behavioral science knowledge have to play in the development of ATIS is particularly important, given well known limitations in human cognitive and information processing abilities. For example, with regard to in-vehicle systems, drivers have a limited amount of attention to allocate among tasks, such as manually driving the automobile and concurrently monitoring information dis- played on in-vehicle instruments. Furthermore, as route guidance and navigation aids are introduced into the automobile, the workload demands placed on the driver are expected to increase. Thus, careful consideration of drivers’ information processing abilities, in relation to the design of in-vehicle systems, is critical for safe and efficient driver performance. The set of papers comprising this special issue deals with many of the important human factors concerns facing the developing interdisciplinary area that has been broadly labeled ATIS.

In putting this special issue together, we have attempted to stress the multi-disciplinary nature of ATIS by soliciting papers from formally trained human factors researchers, behavioral communication experts, and engineers who have historically dealt with transportation systems and traveler behavior concerns. This group of highly respected researchers brings a diverse set of analytic and interpretive skills to the specific problem of designing an ATIS based on motorists’ information needs. The result, we feel, is an important collection of papers that represents the state-of-the-art with regard to behavioral and human factors issues in ATIS. We are hoping that this special issue will be used by future ATIS researchers as an important reference source to address the many behavioral and human factors issues that still must be resolved, and to stimulate further research in this area.

In all, six papers are presented in this special issue. The first is entitled “Behavioral issues in the design and evaluation of advanced traveler information systems.” This paper provides a qualitative overview of human factors issues relating specifically to Advanced Traveler Infor- mation Systems. This qualitative overview serves to establish a general background for the remaining five papers.

The next two papers, “Some human factors design issues and recommendations for au- tomobile navigation systems” and “Demands on driver resources associated with introducing advanced technology into the vehicle,” deal with important human factors concerns relating to

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the limits of drivers’ abilities to use in-vehicle information. This is very significant because, again, drivers’ information processing abilities must be considered in shaping the presentation format and any advanced technology included in the vehicle.

The fourth paper, “A primer on usability testing for developers of traveler information systems,” provides guidelines for incorporating drivers’ input and concerns during the devel- opment phase of Advanced Traveler Information Systems. Usability testing has gained accep- tance and has a proven record of success in many fields, and this paper demonstrates the important role that usability testing must play in the development of effective ATIS.

The fifth paper, “The modeling of dynamic route guidance systems, ’ ’ gives a review of the many important behavioral and implementation issues associated with real-time route guidance systems. The information on ATIS implementation provided in this paper is noteworthy, par- ticularly the methodology associated with dynamic network modeling and its interaction with driver behavior.

The final paper, “The effect of motorist information on commuter behavior: classification of drivers into commuter groups,” presents empirical evidence on the acceptance patterns and likely usage of traveler information systems. This paper uses cluster analysis to assess the behavioral tendencies of Seattle-area commuters. This final paper demonstrates the application of an appropriate methodology to assess traveler behavior in one of the United States’ most highly congested metropolitan areas.