The Effect of Fatigue on Take-over Performance in Urgent Situations in Conditionally Automated Driving

Fatigue is hypothesized to deteriorate take-over performance in conditionally automated driving. In a previous study, we found that fatigued drivers caused low take-over quality compared to alert drivers, however, did not produce more accidents. In this study, we replicated this experiment, but the time budget of taking over control was reduced from 6s to 5s evaluated take-over performance and take-over behavior to get a clearer picture of the effect of fatigue. In a further step, we consolidated the data of both experiments to have a greater sample size and to evaluate the influence of the scenario on take-over performance. Results revealed that fatigued drivers again showed a take-over behavior of lower quality (high decelerations, inappropriate trajectories and initial responses to the TOR, more crashes) compared to alert drivers. The time budget had a significant effect on take-over time and longitudinal acceleration.