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Human Implications of New Technology (HINT)

Sponsoring partner: European Commission, Transport Research Programme

1997-1998

The objectives of the Human Implications of New Technologies (HINT) project were:

  • To develop a European strategy for managing the human and organisational impacts of the new technologies, i.e. those likely to be implemented over the next 10-20 years.
  • To identify the relevant technologies.
  • Investigate the human factors issues associated with those technologies.
  • Investigate the safety implications of these technologies.
  • Develop a strategy for managing these impacts.

The approach of the project was multi-modal. It addressed all the modes of transport - road, rail, air and water - as well as inter-modal operations and transport services. The modes were addressed not separately, but in cross-modal studies by topic, so that the human and organisational issues could be studied generically.

Four technologies were identified for detailed investigation:

  • The organisation and operation of traffic information and control centres.
  • Information and the operator (driver, pilot, etc.).
  • Automatic and semi-automatic vehicle control.
  • Intermodality of transport services.

In each case, the issues and problems were studied across the modes. The LADS was used for driving studies, in particular investigating the human factors issues surrounding the deployment of Autonomous Cruise Control and Intelligent Lane Keeping.