Taxonomy Based Models for Reasoning: Making Inferences from Electronic Road Sign Information

Taxonomy Based modeling was applied to describe drivers’ mental models of variable message signs (VMS’s) displayed on expressways. Progress in road telematics has made it possible to introduce variable message signs (VMS’s). Sensors embedded in the carriageway every 500m record certain variables (speed, flow rate, etc.) that are transformed in real time into “driving times” to a given destination if road conditions do not change. VMS systems are auto-regulative Man-Machine (AMMI) systems which incorporate a model of the user: if the traffic flow is too high, then drivers should choose alternative routes. In so doing, the traffic flow should decrease. The model of the user is based on suppositions such as: people do not like to waste time, they fully understand the displayed messages, they trust the displayed values, they know of alternative routes. However, people also have a model of the way the system functions. And if they do not believe the contents of the message, they will not act as expected. We collected data through interviews with drivers using the critical incidents technique (Flanagan, 1985). Results show that the mental models that drivers have of the way the VMS system works are various but not numerous and that most of them differ from the“ideal expert” mental model. It is clear that users don’t have an adequate model of how the VMS system works and that VMS planners have a model of user behaviour that does not correspond to the behaviour of the drivers we interviewed. Finally, Taxonomy Based Modeling is discussed as a tool for mental model remediation.