Development of an Occlusion Protocol with Design Limits for Assessing Driver Visual Demand

This report addresses the issues required to establish an effective Occlusion methodology for the assessment of In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS). The research develops a robust visual demand measurement protocol based on Occlusion, and proposes criteria for the acceptability of different tasks. This provides information on which IVIS tasks should not be undertaken while driving. This work was undertaken in five work packages: 1. The impact of age on performance of IVIS tasks whilst applying the Occlusion technique 2. Consideration of IVIS tasks and expert evaluation 3. Benchmarking IVIS tasks to another impairment inducing factor (alcohol) and performance measures (Lane Change Task) 4. Production of a detailed protocol for assessment of IVIS tasks, performing a reliability study of Occlusion procedure and testing the influence of a primary loading task 5. Setting limits: determining performance limits based on the Occlusion measures