Situation Awareness and Gamification for Driver assistance on Railways

Abstract

Rail companies are increasingly investing in information systems thatcontribute to reducing energy consumption and increasing punctuality by telling the train driver at which speed to drive. Thesedriver advisorysystems do little to make the train driver understand why the advice is givenand existing research suggests that increasing the train drivers awareness ofthe traffic around them could have positive effects on the acceptance of theadvice given by driver advisory systems, while also increasing the traindrivers understanding of the current situation and projection of future state, their situationalawareness. There also seems to be room for increasing train drivers motivation to followthe advice of driver advisory systems by motivating them to be punctual. Gamification is aset of concepts that are often used with success to increase system usage anduser interaction and can be a promising way of motivating train driversThis Thesis shows that the situational awareness of train drivers can be supported by designing and prototyping a system that fills this gap in current research by visualizing live traffic. The thesis also defines a framework forconstructive use of gamification targeted towards making train drivers reflectover own driving styles and motivating towards punctuality.The scientific contributions of this thesis are:C1: A novel framework for applying gamification to support reflection and increase train drivers intrinsic motivation to be punctual.C2: A prototypical example of how the situational awareness of train drivers can be supported.