When Do Drivers Interact with In-vehicle Well-being Interventions? An Exploratory Analysis of a Longitudinal Study on Public Roads

Recent developments of novel in-vehicle interventions show the potential to transform the otherwise routine and mundane task of commuting into opportunities to improve the drivers' health and well-being. Prior research has explored the effectiveness of various in-vehicle interventions and has identified moments in which drivers could be interruptible to interventions. All the previous studies, however, were conducted in either simulated or constrained real-world driving scenarios on a pre-determined route. In this paper, we take a step forward and evaluate when drivers interact with in-vehicle interventions in unconstrained free-living conditions. To this end, we conducted a two-month longitudinal study with 10 participants, in which each participant was provided with a study car for their daily driving needs. We delivered two in-vehicle interventions - each aimed at improving affective well-being - and simultaneously recorded the participants' driving behavior. In our analysis, we found that several pre-trip characteristics (like trip length, traffic flow, and vehicle occupancy) and the pre-trip affective state of the participants had significant associations with whether the participants started an intervention or canceled a started intervention. Next, we found that several in-the-moment driving characteristics (like current road type, past average speed, and future brake behavior) showed significant associations with drivers' responsiveness to the intervention. Further, we identified several driving behaviors that "negated" the effectiveness of interventions and highlight the potential of using such "negative" driving characteristics to better inform intervention delivery. Finally, we compared trips with and without intervention and found that both interventions employed in our study did not have a negative effect on driving behavior. Based on our analyses, we provide solid recommendations on how to deliver interventions to maximize responsiveness and effectiveness and minimize the burden on the drivers.