Investigation of a Driver’s Reaction Time and Reading Accuracy of Speedometers on Different Instrument Clusters of Passenger Cars

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of drivers’ reading reaction times and errors when reading a speedometer as a part of a complex instrument cluster. The laboratory-based experiment involved 32 participants and 7 instrument clusters from existing passenger cars. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of different instrument cluster (IC) designs on the time and accuracy of information retrieval from the speedometer, including correlations with participants’ age and gender. Reaction times ranged from 451 ms to 11,116 ms. Reading accuracy was assessed based on the number of coarse errors, among other factors. The results indicated no influence of participants’ gender on performance, while a moderate positive correlation was observed between reaction time and participants’ age. Specific design features of both the speedometer and the IC that could be related to the results were identified. From the point of view of both reaction time and reading accuracy, centrally located speedometers (whether digital or analog) were found to be more effective. The highest number of coarse errors occurred when participants misread information, attributed to unfavorable layouts and designs of two instrument clusters.