Shaun Helman

Transport Research Laboratory | TRL · Transportation

Even entirely driverless vehicles will sometimes require remote human intervention. Existing SA frameworks do not acknowledge the significant human factors challenges unique to a driver in charge of a vehicle that they are not physically occupying. Remote operators will have to build up a mental model of the remote environment facilitated by monito...

Even entirely driverless vehicles will sometimes require remote human intervention. Existing SA frameworks do not acknowledge the significant human factors challenges unique to a driver in charge of a vehicle that they are not physically occupying. Remote operators will have to build up a mental model of the remote environment facilitated by monito...

Analysing and learning from spatio-temporal datasets is an important process in many domains, including transportation, healthcare and meteorology. In particular, data collected by sensors in the environment allows us to understand and model the processes acting within the environment. Recently, the volume of spatio-temporal data collected has incr...

The introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) could prevent many accidents attributable to human driver error. However, even entirely driverless vehicles will sometimes require remote human intervention. Current taxonomies of automated driving do not acknowledge the possibility of remote control of AVs or the challenges that are unique to such a dr...

Novel early warning signs for landslides were introduced on the A83 strategic road in Scotland, incorporating a standard rockfall/landslide red warning triangle, switchable flashing lights ('wig-wags') and a sub-plate stating 'Higher risk when lights flash'. A trial on these signs focused on the Rest and be Thankful area of the A38, where landslide...

Results of a literature review focused on evaluations of the impact of in-vehicle monitoring system technologies (telematics) on work-related road safety (specifically, crash risk) and in-depth interviews with organisations and experts providing insights into factors affecting successful implementation. Successful implementation relies on procuri...

To improve customer experience, satisfaction and safety, Highways England commissioned TRL to provide an in-depth understanding of customers’ perceptions, attitudes and experiences of compliance and enforcement on the Strategic Road Network (SRN). TRL conducted five focus groups and four semi-structured telephone interviews with a total of 34 drive...

Analysing and learning from spatio-temporal datasets is an important process in many domains, including transportation, healthcare and meteorology. In particular, data collected by sensors in the environment allows us to understand and model the processes acting within the environment. Recently, the volume of spatio-temporal data collected has incr...

This paper describes the results of a study comparing motorcycle manoeuvres on-road (in live traffic) and off-road (in designated test centres). Workload was measured using NASA-RTLX with rider performance used as a secondary measure, and the results are discussed in terms of the different dimensions that were affected by the change in setting. The...

This study examined directly the impact of various factors associated with driving on 'A-class' roads in the United Kingdom (specifically length of platoon, proportion of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), speed and opportunities for overtaking) on self-reported frustration and overtaking intentions. The impact of situational variables (being under time...

Data from two previously published studies were used to examine the correlations between scores on the violation, error and lapse sub-scales of the driver behaviour questionnaire, and observed driving speed. One dataset utilised data from an instrumented vehicle, which recorded driver speed on bends on a rural road. The other utilised data from a d...

This paper presents technical and perceptual evaluations of a novel form of landslide warning road sign. The signs, known as ‘wig-wags,’ incorporate a standard rockfall/landslide red warning triangle, flashing lights and a sub-plate that warns of ‘higher risk when lights flash’ (i.e., during periods of high rainfall) and have been trialled at an im...

The reduction of injuries and deaths sustained from work-related driving is a priority for occupational health. It is widely accepted that for most workers driving is one of the riskiest activities undertaken as part of work. In Great Britain (GB) it is estimated that at least a fifth of road injuries are sustained in a collision in which someone w...

Young and novice drivers are overrepresented in road collisions in Great Britain (GB) and worldwide (DfT, 2012; Goldstein, 1972; OECD, 2006). The key contributory factors to this problem are known and are cross-cultural; they are youth and inexperience. This report reviews and synthesises evidence in three areas concerned with improving road safet...

One of the key contributory factors for accident involvement is the misjudgment of vehicle approach. Past research has indicated that individuals can use the rate of visual "looming" in order to judge the time to arrival (TTA) of approaching vehicles. Although a large number of road traffic collisions occur at roadside junctions, very little resear...

The misperception of vehicle approach speed is a key contributory factor to road traffic crash involvement. Past research has indicated that individuals use the rate of visual looming to calculate the time to passage (TTP) of a vehicle, and that smaller vehicles loom to a lesser extent than larger vehicles. Despite a disproportionate number of fata...

One of the key contributory factors for accident involvement is misjudgment of approach speed (Department for Transport, 2010). Past research has indicated that individuals can use the rate of visual looming in order to the judge time to passage (TTP) of approaching vehicles, and that smaller vehicles loom to a lesser extent than larger vehicles (e...

The ability to accurately judge the approach speed of a motorcycle is critical in order to avoid right of way violation accidents at junctions. Research has demonstrated that individuals consistently judge the time to contact (ttc) of a motorcycle to be later than that of a car (Horswill, Helman, Ardiles, & Wann, 2005). However, the majority of stu...

The current study explored the role of collaboration in team performance using a computer-based simulation of a supply chain called the Beer Game developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In SCM simulations, as in real life, a ‘bullwhip’ effect leads to a drop in profitability of the supply chain. The inclusion of Human Factors...

Previous studies have demonstrated that searching simultaneously for two dissimilar targets is very inefficient compared to searching separately for each target. This study investigated how this multiple-target cost interacts with the relative frequency of the appearance of two target classes. Response accuracy was measured during simultaneous sear...

Recent studies have demonstrated the important role of working memory in conducting effective visual search. The present study examined the role that the central executive plays in visual search, which is believed to be necessary for high-level control and coordination in search, as well as storing task- and target-related information. Performance...

The probability of target presentation in visual search tasks influences target detection performance: this is known as the prevalence effect (Wolfe et al., 2005). Additionally, searching for several targets simultaneously reduces search performance: this is known as the dual-target cost (DTC: Menneer et al., 2007). The interaction between the DTC...

In this study, two experiments are reported which investigated the relative importance of five different image based factors and one human factor (training) in mediating threat detection performance of human operators in airport security x-ray screening. Experiment 1 was based on a random sample of roughly 16'000 records of threat image projection...

Research in semantic word list-learning paradigms suggests that presentation modality during encoding may influence word recognition at test. Given these findings, it is argued that some previous misinformation effect research might contain methodologies which are problematic. Misleading information groups typically receive erroneous information in...

Drivers adopt smaller safety margins when pulling out in front of motorcycles compared with cars. This could partly account for why the most common motorcycle/car accident involves a car violating a motorcyclist's right of way. One possible explanation is the size-arrival effect in which smaller objects are perceived to arrive later than larger obj...

The mere exposure effect is defined as enhanced attitude toward a stimulus that has been repeatedly exposed. Repetition priming is defined as facilitated processing of a previously exposed stimulus. We conducted a direct comparison between the two phenomena to test the assumption that the mere exposure effect represents an example of repetition pri...

Motorcyclists and a matched group of non-motorcycling car drivers were assessed on behavioral measures known to relate to accident involvement. Using a range of laboratory measures, we found that motorcyclists chose faster speeds than the car drivers, overtook more, and pulled into smaller gaps in traffic, though they did not travel any closer to t...

The artificial grammar (AG) learning literature (see, e.g., Mathews et al., 1989; Reber, 1967) has relied heavily on a single measure of implicitly acquired knowledge. Recent work comparing this measure (string classification) with a more indirect measure in which participants make liking ratings of novel stimuli (e.g., Manza & Bornstein, 1995; New...

We report a study in which five non-traditional teaching techniques were applied to an introductory statistics course for psychology undergraduates: active and implicit learning, use of breaks, mastery learning, peer tutoring and problem-based learning. Collectively, these techniques improved students’ scores in a statistics examination by ten perc...

Different types of road users are at different risk of having a road accident. The aim of the present research is to explore the causal mechanisms behind the accident liability of a high-risk type of road user and a lower-risk type of road user.