Background

AWAKE – System for Effective Assessment of Driver Vigilance and Warning According to Traffic Risk Estimations

Background

Over the last few years a major focus of traffic research has been driver fatigue as one of the most important causes of road accidents. 10-20% of all accidents are related to hypo-vigilant driver states. Furthermore, accidents related to driver hypo-vigilance are more serious than other types of accidents, since sleepy drivers often do not take evasive action prior to a collision.

Still, the problem might be also directly related to the introduction of various Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in the next years in the market. Assistive or even automated driving systems may also induce fatigue and stress to the driver caused by prolonged driving under monotonous driving conditions. In other words, cases of driver hypo-vigilance may be well enhanced due to the introduction of ADAS. And yet, ADAS technology may well be the right answer to fight this same problem.

AWAKE aims to increase road safety as it can detect drowsiness and warn the driver in time. However, only after the behavioural effects of the AWAKE system have been studied (in its pilots) the actual impact to traffic safety will be estimated.