Application of contemporary systems-based methods to reduce trauma at rail level crossings. Crashes at railway level crossings continue to cause significant trauma across Australia. Despite being a longstanding safety problem, the design and operation of level crossings has not changed considerably for decades. This research will provide an in-depth understanding of road user, environmental and infrastructure-related factors that influence safety and performance at rail level crossings. This wil ....Application of contemporary systems-based methods to reduce trauma at rail level crossings. Crashes at railway level crossings continue to cause significant trauma across Australia. Despite being a longstanding safety problem, the design and operation of level crossings has not changed considerably for decades. This research will provide an in-depth understanding of road user, environmental and infrastructure-related factors that influence safety and performance at rail level crossings. This will be used to develop a world-first model of the level crossing system that is needed to support the development of innovative countermeasures that will improve safety. Reductions in the levels of significant trauma at level crossings, and new public policy for level crossing upgrades, are the intended real-world outcomes.Read moreRead less
Predicting misdiagnoses in the transition from competence to expertise. This project aims to test whether the utilisation of cues predicts vulnerability to misdiagnosis during skill acquisition. This project uses newly developed measures of cue utilisation, together with innovative, on-line scenarios and a longitudinal design, to measure different types of misdiagnosis amongst qualified radiologists, pathologists and pilots as they acquire expertise. With potential applications in medicine, avia ....Predicting misdiagnoses in the transition from competence to expertise. This project aims to test whether the utilisation of cues predicts vulnerability to misdiagnosis during skill acquisition. This project uses newly developed measures of cue utilisation, together with innovative, on-line scenarios and a longitudinal design, to measure different types of misdiagnosis amongst qualified radiologists, pathologists and pilots as they acquire expertise. With potential applications in medicine, aviation, energy, transportation, and defence, the expected outcomes will facilitate interventions such as targeted training and the provision of technical support, that will guide the diagnostic process and thereby reduce the impact of misdiagnoses on individuals and infrastructure.Read moreRead less
The Australian naturalistic driving study: innovation in road safety research and policy. A revolutionary new approach, the naturalistic driving study, will investigate what people actually do when they drive, in normal and safety-critical situations. It will provide Australia with answers to some intractable, high priority, road safety problems that cannot be answered using current methods, thereby saving hundreds of lives.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100050
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$570,000.00
Summary
Integrated facility for recording driver and road user behaviour. The integrated facility will be used to record and analyse data on driver and road user behaviour, in normal and safety-critical situations, for thousands of Australian drivers. The data yielded will be used to develop new and improved countermeasures for reducing road deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads.
Difficulties of monitoring for rare events. This project aims to identify cognitive and neural processes involved in sustaining attention to moving displays under monitoring conditions.People are poor at monitoring for rare events: they tend to miss infrequent targets. This is a problem in automated systems for transport, rail and air traffic control. If a computer error occurs, the operator needs to intervene quickly. This project will develop a tool for studying monitoring and determine patter ....Difficulties of monitoring for rare events. This project aims to identify cognitive and neural processes involved in sustaining attention to moving displays under monitoring conditions.People are poor at monitoring for rare events: they tend to miss infrequent targets. This is a problem in automated systems for transport, rail and air traffic control. If a computer error occurs, the operator needs to intervene quickly. This project will develop a tool for studying monitoring and determine patterns of brain activity that predict a lapse of attention. The results should contribute to theories of vigilance and improve performance in real-world monitoring situations.Read moreRead less
Understanding and improving sustained attention under vigilance conditions. This project aims to address a major global challenge caused by technological advances: human operators have to monitor computer-control (e.g., in autonomous vehicles, rail and airtraffic control) but sustaining attention is very difficult under these conditions. Developing innovative behavioural and neural methods, this internationally collaborative project bridges basic and applied science to understand lapses of atten ....Understanding and improving sustained attention under vigilance conditions. This project aims to address a major global challenge caused by technological advances: human operators have to monitor computer-control (e.g., in autonomous vehicles, rail and airtraffic control) but sustaining attention is very difficult under these conditions. Developing innovative behavioural and neural methods, this internationally collaborative project bridges basic and applied science to understand lapses of attention under monitoring conditions. It creates a novel intervention, based on brain activity patterns, to improve performance. Outcomes will increase our neural understanding of attention and lay a foundation for a novel system to detect lapses of attention in high-risk environments, preventing errors before they occur.Read moreRead less
Improving performance in high risk environments using guided distraction and iconic cues. This project tests a novel strategy to assist operators in high-risk automated environments, in order to maintain their performance in low workload situations. Using guided distraction, this project will be able to show improvements in attention to critical tasks and in overall system performance, thereby reducing the potential for error.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101449
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$361,996.00
Summary
Human factors approaches for the safe introduction of autonomous vehicles. This project aims to address potential safety risks arising from the introduction of advanced autonomous vehicles through a novel integration of human factors and computer-based simulation techniques. While automation promises to reduce crashes, the project expects to generate new knowledge about the emergence of risks through interactions between human road users and autonomous vehicles, particularly in the initial trans ....Human factors approaches for the safe introduction of autonomous vehicles. This project aims to address potential safety risks arising from the introduction of advanced autonomous vehicles through a novel integration of human factors and computer-based simulation techniques. While automation promises to reduce crashes, the project expects to generate new knowledge about the emergence of risks through interactions between human road users and autonomous vehicles, particularly in the initial transition period. The expected outcomes include an enhanced capacity to understand how risks emerge in complex systems, and the development of specific policy and regulatory interventions. The project expects to provide significant safety benefits by preventing new types of road crash events.Read moreRead less
Developing and evaluating a theoretically grounded novice driver education program incorporating simulators. Australian young drivers are 13 per cent of the population but account for nearly a quarter of road deaths. This project aims to develop a research informed, theory-driven education intervention that includes a simulator component to improve their driving skills and attitudes. A process and outcome evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of the training including the impact on how ind ....Developing and evaluating a theoretically grounded novice driver education program incorporating simulators. Australian young drivers are 13 per cent of the population but account for nearly a quarter of road deaths. This project aims to develop a research informed, theory-driven education intervention that includes a simulator component to improve their driving skills and attitudes. A process and outcome evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of the training including the impact on how individuals learn to drive, changes in skill and attitudes as well as the influence on crashes and offences. It is intended that a second parallel study will adapt the intervention for Indigenous Australians and examine the effectiveness of this adaptation.Read moreRead less
Evaluation of profile edge markings as a road safety countermeasure: Analysis of crash statistics and on-road study of driver behaviour and attitudes. Fatigue contributes to 20% of fatal car crashes. Profile line-marking (PLM) aims to reduce fatigue-related crashes by alerting drivers when they begin veering off the road. Substantial stretches are laid annually Australia-wide, although evaluations of PLM have been unsophisticated or flawed. We aim to improve understanding of PLM impacts by inve ....Evaluation of profile edge markings as a road safety countermeasure: Analysis of crash statistics and on-road study of driver behaviour and attitudes. Fatigue contributes to 20% of fatal car crashes. Profile line-marking (PLM) aims to reduce fatigue-related crashes by alerting drivers when they begin veering off the road. Substantial stretches are laid annually Australia-wide, although evaluations of PLM have been unsophisticated or flawed. We aim to improve understanding of PLM impacts by investigating: 1)beliefs/attitudes regarding PLM (e.g. "PLM damages cars"); 2)whether road-edge PLM increases head-on crashes; 3)the efficacy of PLM with more widely spaced "ribs", with and without separate raised pavement markers; 4)underlying mechanisms (e.g. reducing fatigue, increasing visibility during night/wet) in order to improve the efficacy and efficiency of PLM use.Read moreRead less