A meta-analysis of the impacts of operating in-vehicle information systems on road safety

Ziakopoulos, Apostolos; Theofilatos, Athanasios; Papadimitriou, E.; Yannis, George

doi:10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.01.003

A meta-analysis of the impacts of operating in-vehicle information systems on road safety

Title

A meta-analysis of the impacts of operating in-vehicle information systems on road safety

Author

Ziakopoulos, Apostolos (National Technical University of Athens)
Theofilatos, Athanasios (National Technical University of Athens)
Papadimitriou, E. (TU Delft Safety and Security Science)
Yannis, George (National Technical University of Athens)

Date

2019

Abstract

This study aims to estimate the overall impact of distraction due to operating in-vehicle information systems (IVIS) and similar devices while driving on road crashes. While similar research has been undertaken investigating the issue, varying results have been reported so far. Therefore a two-step approach was adopted: initially a review of the literature was conducted to identify key high quality studies and the parameters that they examined. Afterwards, meta-analyses were applied in order to estimate the overall effects of operating IVIS while driving on the absolute proportion of crashes (i.e. the proportion of total crashes due to IVIS). After applying a random effects meta-analysis to the findings of existing studies, it was found that 1.66% of crashes occur due to operating devices in total. In addition, it is indicated that about 0.6% of safety-critical incidents for professional drivers are due to in-vehicle device operation. The odds of crashes influenced by IVIS operation were also estimated and were found to be very low. From the findings of the present review and the meta-analysis, it is suggested that device operation as a risk factor while driving is a less researched aspect of driver distraction than others, and more studies would improve result estimates and transferability, especially for professional drivers. This study summarizes concisely the current effect of driver interaction with in-vehicle information systems on crashes, which might become considerably pertinent in view of the increasing deployment of vehicles with increasing levels of automation.

Subject

Driver distraction
IVIS
Meta-analysis
Operating devices
Road crashes

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b29647d3-c9ba-420d-a934-9a7defc0fcc9

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iatssr.2019.01.003

ISSN

0386-1112

Source

IATSS Research, 43 (3), 185-194

Part of collection

Institutional Repository