Papantoniou P., Antoniou C., Papadimitriou E., Yannis G., Golias J., “Exploratory analysis of the effect of distraction on driving behaviour through a driving simulator experiment”, Proceedings of the 6th Pan-hellenic Road Safety Conference, Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, March 2015.

The objective of this research is the investigation of the effect of different types of distracted driving on driving performance. For this purpose, a driving simulator experiment was carried out at the simulator of the National Technical University of Athens, in which 87 participants were asked to drive under different types of distraction (no distraction, conversation with passenger, mobile phone) and under different traffic conditions (high/low traffic) on urban area. The data collected from the driving simulator experiment include both longitudinal control measures (average speed, headways), lateral control measures (lateral position, standard deviation of lateral position) and the reaction time of the driver at unexpected incidents. In the next step, a descriptive analysis through box plots took place in order to investigate key driving performance parameters. More specifically, participants in the framework of the compensatory behaviour were found to drive at lower speed and with lower speed variability in the distraction trials compared to undistracted driving. Furthermore, regarding the reaction time, results indicate that the distraction mechanism between conversation with the passenger and mobile phone is different and has totally different consequences in the various age groups.