Objectives and context

The term “behavioural adaptation” refers to “those behaviours which may occur following the introduction of changes to the road-vehicle-user […] They create a continuum of effects ranging from positive increase in safety to a decrease in safety” (OECD, 1990).

Whereas interest in and research on behavioural adaptation goes back to the 1970s, the topic has emerged as a key issue in R&D today. However, there is a lack of research programs that has jointly investigated the short-, medium- and long-term effects of system properties, on drivers’ cognitive, affective and motivational processes underlying behaviour. Moreover, the adaptation effects found in previous studies vary a lot due to the differences in system, situations and drivers characteristics studied, inducing a lack of substance amongst all these results. ADAPTATION aims at bridging that gap by studying drivers’ behavioural adaptation to ADAS from an integrative perspective. The aim is to converge towards a theoretical model of behavioural adaptation that can be used to generate predictions about how drivers will adapt to new ADAS technologies and to derive guidelines for the design of such systems.

In the framework of this research challenge, a research programme and a training programme have been developed to contribute to the building up of the new generation of European researchers.

The research program is designed in order to optimise the scientific training of early stage researchers. The general research issue, as well as the individual research topics, takes into account needs and characteristics of researchers in the first years of their career.

The training program is designed in order to extend the skills of the future generation of European academia and industry researchers in charge of the design, implementation and regulation of ADAS technologies.