Driving Research Group

The Driving Research Group has a wealth of knowledge and experience in driver safety, spanning over thirty years. Our approach is based on the premise that responsibility for safe driving is not just about the individual driver but also shared with other systems including organisational elements and vehicle factors. Particular strengths are the measurement of the psychological factors that influence driver behaviour, telematics/IVMS, meta-analysis, and the development and testing of interventions to improve safety for road users.

Our impact and facilities

Education

The Driving Research Group offers the following short course:

Driver Psychology and Behaviour

Academic staff from the Driving Research Group are available to supervise PhD and MPhil research in the broad area of traffic psychology/driver behaviour. Appropriately qualified individuals should contact Dr Lisa Dorn with a proposed outline of their PhD/MPhil research.

DriverMetrics

The Driving Research Group is closely associated with DriverMetrics, a company established by Cranfield University to utilise scientific research in the development of psychometrically-based driver risk assessments to profile driver behaviour for driver coaching and organisational interventions. DriverMetrics' portfolio of internationally benchmarked and online assessments, e-learning and interventions are now used worldwide by hundreds of global companies and SMEs including: Unilever, PepsiCo, Greyhound, Arriva, Shell and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Current research

The Driving Research Group works with a wide range of organisations, including large and small companies working in both the private and public sectors. Current projects include:

Horizon 2020: MeBeSafe - Making traffic safer through behaviour-changing nudging measures and coaching

MeBeSafe (Measures for Behaving Safely in Traffic) is a €7.1m EU-financed Horizon 2020 project. The project aims to reduce the number and severity of road accidents by directly changing our habitual traffic behaviour. The project started in May 2017 and continues until 2021. The research requires a cross-disciplinary collaboration between technologists, behavioural scientists and traffic experts. The consortium consists of 16 partners from the business, academic and research/technology sectors and includes automotive OEMs and suppliers, road infrastructure and fleet owners, SMEs involved in road traffic analyses and leading road safety research groups including Cranfield University’s Driving Research Group.

The project seeks to change habitual driving behaviour and motivate drivers to preserve adequate traffic safety margins. Several nudging and coaching measures will be implemented in different facets of road transportation, using in-vehicle Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, adaptive in-road surface displays, and an app-driven approach to coaching. The project's main targets are drivers, private and professional, but also cyclists.

Ortus Group: Evaluation and validation of a vehicle data management system

Datapoint, a telematics system, has been installed on ambulance vehicles since July 2012 and a significant amount of data has been collected. An initial evaluation of trial data revealed that the Datapoint has seen significant benefits around speed limiting and resulted in fuel efficiency improvements. This project aims to interrogate the data further to investigate whether there has been a reduction in road traffic collisions in emergency care vehicles since roll out.

Highways England: Driver Behaviour Impacting the Operation and Maintenance of the Strategic Road Network

The motorways and major trunk roads make up the Strategic Road Network (SRN) providing critical connections across England. Today the SRN carries a third of all national road traffic, as well as two thirds of freight traffic. The research project assists and informs the achievement of Highways England on ways to improve user satisfaction; to support the smooth flow of traffic and minimise delay on the SRN caused by accidents/poor driver behaviour; to improve environmental outcomes by improving driver behaviour and to keep the network in good condition, often negatively impacted by poor driver behaviour and accidents.

Highways England: Safer Driver Behaviour Intervention Programme Development

Improving journeys, making them safer and faster with more reliable journey times, is at the heart of Highways England’s priorities for the period 2020 to 2025. To achieve their aims Highways England must address non-compliant driver behaviour. The research project aims to identify priority non-compliant behaviours and to develop implementation plans for effective interventions for behaviour change to support a reduction in KSI casualties. Ensuring that interventions are evidence-based and systematically implemented using a safe systems approach will increase the chances of an impact on driver behaviour and a reduction in KSIs.