Exploring Urban Challenges: Understanding Advanced Driver Assistance Systems in Different Situational Contexts

New Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are now available to support urban driving. To adequately use ADAS, especially in complex situations, drivers must comprehend them. An on-road study was conducted to investigate the mental model development while interacting with a state-of-the-art ADAS in both a rural (less complex) and an urban context (more complex). Forty-six participants experienced two rounds of each context. After each round, drivers rated their mental model, acceptance, and trust. Results indicate that for the rural context participants learned the system functionality in the first round without further improvement . In the urban context the mental model was generally less accurate, but improved in the second round. Trust increased from the first to the second rural round while acceptance did not show a significant change within the context. The results provide a first glimpse into the importance of evaluating different contexts and interaction scenarios for ADAS.