Measurement of Degradation Effects of Mobile Phone Use on Driving Performance with Driving Simulation

It is very common that drivers use mobile phones while they are driving, which may cause negative effects on driving performance or sometimes even accidents as a result of distraction. In an effort to find out how mobile phone use affects driving performance, six virtual driving scenes based on driving simulation were designed to measure the performance degradation. Totally 10 participants were recruited for the experiment. Each participant was asked to drive in the six simulation scenes with and without mobile phone use. The parameters that relate to driving performance were recorded, compared and analyzed. Results show: with mobile phone use, there is longer task completion time, larger probability of driving in wrong route, larger lane departure standard deviation (i.e. worse direction control), smaller vehicle overtaking distance (worse headway control), later road bumper detection and response, and more passenger recognition errors, than without mobile phone use. All the results above were significant and reflected the negative impacts of mobile phone use on driving performance.