A Longitudinal Driving Experience Study with a Novel and Retrofit Intelligent Speed Assistant System

Speeding is the primary cause of traffic accidents. To improve road safety, the European Union started implementing a new regulation mandating that all new vehicles coming to the EU market must be equipped with an Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) system from 2022 onwards. However, the rule did not include existing vehicles on the roads. Our research aims to fulfill this gap by investigating user experiences and acceptance with a retrofit system developed by V-tron, a Dutch company. Seven participants signed up for our study and our technicians installed the ISA system on their cars. They then used the car for more than one month and reported their experiences weekly. We also recruited a driving school and conducted a focus group with five instructors. Using interview and questionnaire methods to collect their first-person experiences, we saw that all participants acknowledged the vision and potential of ISA systems in reducing speeding and improving traffic safety. While the retrofit system is easy to use, the technology needs to be improved in accuracy and robustness. The overruling mechanism also needs to minimize the latency and consider secondary users unfamiliar with the speed control. Three design concepts were proposed to improve user experiences and eventually promote the adaptation of ISA systems.