Comparative analysis of the factors affecting driver comfort and safety in vehicles

In recent years, the contribution to technology is increasing day by day. In particular, development in the automotive sector brings the safety and comfort of the driver and passengers to better levels. This study consists of three basic stages. At the first stage, standards affecting driver comfort and safety were examined. The term drowsiness that affects driver safety is generally expressed as a state of reduced alertness. In-vehicle comfort is defined as the absence of subjective well-being or mechanical deterioration in the driver and passengers, depending on the environment. An overview of the systems that provide driver comfort and safety is presented, the safety systems are classified and briefly described. In the second stage of the thesis, vibration, temperature, and sound factors inside the vehicle on the drowsiness and performance were examined. Vehicle data from previous driving simulator experiments, environment variables, and integrated effects of parameters affecting driver safety were analyzed using statistical methods. 15-40 ° C temperature, 58-108 dB sound intensity, and 1-15 Hz vibration data in the vehicle cabin were examined. The data of the driver's blink frequency, the distance of the vehicle from the middle line, the speed change, and the karolinska sleepiness scale of the driver were analyzed using the dependent sample t-test method. As a result of the dependent variables' analysis, the temperature factor was 55%, vibration, and noise as 36% and 9%, respectively, as the parameter affecting driver's drowsiness and performance. In the third stage of the thesis, the integrated effect of temperature and sound factors on driver and passenger performances was weighted. Four different experiments were carried out in four different scenarios to model the distribution of temperature and sound factors in the vehicle, which took one hundred and twenty minutes. The data obtained is transferred to the designed interface in real-time. Blink frequency and karolinska Sleepiness Scale data from driving simulator experiments in previous studies were collected. The data's relationships in a statistical sense were determined using the dependent sample t-test method. As a result of their analysis, while the temperature factor was dominant over fatigue at the thirtieth and twentieth minutes for driver and front passenger, the effect of sound parameter became dominant in the sixtieth and ninety minutes. For rear passengers, it was observed that the temperature factor was more effective at the thirtieth, ninetieth, and one hundred and Twentieth minutes, while the sound factor was effective at the sixtieth minute.