A safety checklist for the assessment of in-vehicle information systems: a user's manual

This document describes a Safety Checklist for assessing In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS) against established ergonomic custom and practice. The Checklist was developed by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) at the request of the United Kingdom's Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), to assess new IVIS before their widespread distribution. The primary function of the Checklist is to provide a structured aid to an expert for the assessment of the safety related features of the IVIS, in order to lead the assessor(s) to a conclusion whether the IVIS does, or does not present safety concerns. It was developed drawing on accepted existing codes of practice and emerging international standards. The Checklist assessment proforma is accompanied by Supportive Information (Section 5), which provides greater explanation about the application of the Checklist, as well as allowing the assessor(s) to clarify Checklist questions and understand the rationale behind them. Assessors should read the Supportive Information before completing the Checklist. The document also contains a series of Technical references (Appendix 1), Abbreviations and a Glossary of terms (Appendix 2). (A)