Project

Full title: Future Driver Training - towards an open research platform for immersive simulation gaming for improving safe driving behavior and interaction

Purpose and goal

Understanding drivers’ theory material is a key component of education leading up to driver’s license acquisition in Sweden. Currently theory material is offered for study to future drivers in printed book form or online as primary text-based pedagogical experiences. This stands in sharp contrast to Sweden’s forward-thinking approach to risk education, in which drivers are provided with a compelling simulation experience in a physical car. Sweden’s novel immersive approach to driver risk training can be extended to driver’s theory training as well by use of game-based learning as a complement to traditional driver’s education and driver ADAS interaction.
The current approach to driver theory training relies on rote memorisation. Rote recall of theory test material may result in future drivers passing the test, but the learning outcomes of such approaches are shallow. Instead, deep learning that synthesises knowledge via application in experiential learning can work to provide deeper understanding and longer-term recall. Deeper understanding and longer-term recall of theory material can result in safer driving behaviours to help achieve the goal of Vision Zero. Successful immersive simulation training games have already been created for truck drivers (i.e. Scania Truck Driving Simulator), and this approach could be extended to everyday drivers. If Sweden were to provide an immersive training game for theory education, it is possible that many users would engage with the software. This would mean that over a longer term the game could also serve a secondary research purpose: as an open-source testbed for industrial and academic research to access a large and continually renewed set of player data. For example, innovations in car interface design could be tested within such a simulation platform while simultaneously carrying out driver theory education.

Planned approach and activities

The project can be advanced by first developing a pre-study, involving relevant stakeholders and prototyping and testing an application. This could be in a board or card game format initially, with plans to later move to digital form. Collaboration for this pre-study brings together representatives from academic research into road safety, human machine interaction, game design, and pedagogy with stakeholders from industrial research and relevant national associations. This core group will run a series of participatory design charrettes with representative end users and stakeholders to develop a lo-fi prototype.

Expected results

The outcomes of this pre-study design charrette series will be a lo-fi prototype traffic game, to be further refined via user testing and evaluation in driver training and driver interaction with ADAS. This lo-fi prototype may be physical or digital, or a mixed reality blend of physical and digital components and will be included in a larger funding application (i.e. Vinnova, EU Horizon). We also plan to submit results of the pre-study to conferences for dissemination (i.e. DiGRA: Digital Games Research Association, SweCog: Swedish Cognitive Science Association). The work may even be relevant to DDI because digital game platforms allow for the inclusion of sensing technologies like eye tracking which can evaluate user attention levels. There is a clear collaboration basis among the suggested partners and in relation to the expected results.