Past Projects

July 1994 – October 1994 Teaching and Learning Development Grant (University of Southampton)
N. A. Stanton & C. J. Colbourn
Development of Microcosm teaching materials for undergraduate course in Occupational Psychology.

July 1995 – July 1997 EPSRC/DTI
N. A. Stanton
Development of a methodology for improving safety of in-car devices.

This led to the publication of a book entitles: ‘A Guide to Methodology in Ergonomics’ published by Taylor and Francis in 1999.

November 1995 – July 1997 British Gas
N. A. Stanton
A systems analysis of team behaviour in four new human supervisory control rooms.

This research led to a research paper published in the journal Ergonomics.

March 1996 Equipment Reserve Fund (University of Southampton)
R. E. Remington, M. Van Vugt, N. A. Stanton, G. Jeffery & S. Stevenage
Development of the Applied Experimental Psychology Laboratory: a network of Macintosh computers in separate cubicles.

September 1997 – December 1999 ESRC/DTI
N. A. Stanton
The development of a psychological model of the driver’s representation of Adaptive Cruise Control.

The results from the research were published in the research journal Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science. The project was graded as ‘outstanding’ from peer review by the ESRC.

October 1997 – December 1997 DERA
N. A. Stanton
Assessing the effects of location, media and task type on team performance.

The largest performance effect was found for media and task type. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Defence Studies.

January 1998 – January 2000 ESRC/National Grid/British Gas
N. A. Stanton and A. D. Roberts
Assessment of virtual reality in human supervisory control.

Two aspects of virtuality were investigated: virtual interfaces and virtual teams. The largest effect on performance was found in virtual teams rather than virtual interfaces, for a gas network control task.
September 1998 – September 2002 £2,167,600 Rolls Royce/BAe
K. Wallace. A. Keane, J. Clarkson, G. Parks, K. Platts, C. Harris, W. Hall and N. A. Stanton.
Rolls Royce/BAe University Technology Centre at Southampton focusing on supporting the design processes.

May 2000 EPSRC
E. Billett, D. Harrison, D. Wright and N. A. Stanton
Rapid Prototyping Equipment: fused deposition modelling machine for building models and 3D printer for rapid prototypes out of gypsum.

April 2001 – March 2003 DTI
A. Marshall, D. Harris, N. A. Stanton, S. Decker & T. Waldmann
Prediction of Human Errors on Civil Flight Decks.

This research was initiated in response to the need to assess the potential for design-induced errors in modern flight decks. A range of human error identification techniques have been assessed (i.e., SHERPA, TAFEI, THERP, HAZOP and HEIST). Following a study of pilot error, a new template-based approach was developed and validated.

2002 JISC
S. Watts, R. Paul, W.Balachandran, N. Ladommatos, and N. A. Stanton
The BIT Lab: development of a new, purpose-built, virtual reality centre for studies into visualization, design, and human performance.

2003 – 2006 (phase 1) MoD/DSTL
D. Morris, N. A. Stanton, D. Harris, C. Baber, G. Hone, P. Newman, B. Stone, M. Fuchs, and M. Goom.
Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI-DTC).

This consortium comprises three universities (Brunel, Birmingham and Cranfield) and five defence companies (Aerosystems, MBDA, SEA, Lockheed Martin and VP Defence). Four major research themes have been identified for the next three years:, C4-ISTAR, Determining Future Training Requirements, Updating HFI Processes, and HFI Programme Information Dissemination. I am leading the research into future battle-spaces, focusing on C4-ISTAR (Command, Control, Communication and Computers – Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance).

2004 – 2006 Institute of Advanced Motorists
N. A. Stanton and G. H. Walker
Evaluation of the effects of advanced driving training programmes on driver skills, behaviour and attitudes.

A controlled study of drivers who undertake the IAM course is compared two control groups in order to determine the benefits of advanced driving training.

2006 – 2009 (phase 2) MoD/DSTL
D. Morris, N. A. Stanton, D. Harris, C. Baber, G. Hone, P. Newman, B. Stone, M. Fuchs, and C. Mason.
Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI-DTC).

This consortium comprises three universities (Southampton (formally Brunel), Birmingham and Cranfield) and four defence companies (Aerosystems, MBDA, SEA, and Lockheed Martin). This is the continuation of the phase 1 contract. The main themes of the research for the second phase are: Command and Control, Training, Human Factors methods, integration of Human Factors, and Multinational Operations.

2009 – 2010 (phase 3) MoD/DSTL
K. Lane, N. A. Stanton, D. Harris, C. Baber, G. Hone, P. Newman, B. Stone, M. Fuchs, and C. Mason.
Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI-DTC).

2010 – 2011 (phase 4) MoD/DSTL
K. Lane, N. A. Stanton, D. Harris, C. Baber, G. Hone, P. Newman, B. Stone, M. Fuchs, and C. Mason.
Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI-DTC).

2011 – 2012 (phase 5) MoD/DSTL
K. Lane, N. A. Stanton, D. Harris, C. Baber, G. Hone, P. Newman, B. Stone, M. Fuchs, and C. Mason.
Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre (HFI-DTC).

2007-2011 Future Intelligent Transport Systems project: FOOTlite EPSRC (£2.6 million)
M. Macdonald, M. S. Young and N. A. Stanton (with industrial partners)
Foot-LITE comprises MIRA Ltd, Hampshire County Council, the IAM, Transport for London and Sussex Police, as demonstrators of innovation provided by the University of Southampton, TRW Conekt, Brunel University, Nissan, RDM, Ricardo, TORG and Zettlex. Footlite will receive funding of £2.6m and the partners will contribute £1.4m of their own funds. The project aims to develop and test technologies that will encourage safe and efficient driving of motor vehicles.

2009-2014 ALICIA project for future aircraft cockpits EU 7th Framework
N. A. Stanton (with 42 EU partners)
The All Condition Operations and Innovative Cockpit Infrastructure (ALICIA) project is led by Westland Helicopters and Thales. There are 42 partners including myself as the PI at the University of Southampton. The overarching aim within the ALICIA project will be to develop a new and scalable cockpit application capable of meeting the challenge of operating aircraft in all conceivable conditions – “All Conditions Operations”. The objective within ALICIA will be to design this new application in such a way that it is extensible and therefore applicable to all aircraft cockpits. This will necessarily entail a new cockpit infrastructure capable of delivering enhanced situation awareness to the crew whilst simultaneously reducing crew workload and improving overall aircraft safety.

MAMOOSE 2011 DfT
N. A. Stanton and M. Macdonald
Led by XPI Simulation Ltd. in partnership with the Transportation Research Group under a contract for the Department for Transport (DfT) to develop “Synthetic Environments in Managed Motorways”, along with the Highways Agency and Technology Strategy Board under the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI).

Daylight Dimming of Traffic Signals 2011 Radix
N. A. Stanton
The main aim of this study is to investigate if there is any significant difference in driver behaviour with the provision of dimmed road traffic signals under conditions of lower ambient lighting, compared to road traffic signals of normal intensity. The results of the study showed that whilst there were significant differences in drivers’ perception of the signal intensities, there was no sufficient evidence to suggest any differences in their driving behaviour between normal and dimmed conditions.

SAREBECOMS 2010-2011 EPSRC (RRUK)
N. A. Stanton and B. Ryan
The project took a step back from solutioneering – to consider the big picture of how to transform the current version of the rail socio-technical system to a future version with an increased take-up of 30 percent or more modal shift from road transport. The proposed approach is grounded in socio-technical-economic analysis of the constraints that are preventing modal shift, using Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) to analyse the present system and consultation with representative passenger groups identify what the future system might look like. An aim of this part of the work has been to collect information from a sample of commuters, to add depth to the understanding of the constraints that have been identified in the CWA and help to develop a better understanding of the barriers to modal shift to rail travel in this group and how these barriers can be removed.

Application of contemporary systems-based methods to reduce trauma at rail level crossings 2012-2016 ARC P. M. Salmon, M. Lenne, T. Triggs and N. A. Stanton (with the University of the Sunshine Coast and Monash University)
The continued occurrence of rail level crossing (RLX) collisions across the world demonstrates that the longstanding problem is not being solved by current interventions. Current solutions to the problem, such as grade separation and installation of boom gates at all crossings provide considerable safety improvements but are cost-prohibitive. Therefore, new and innovative approaches to improving RLX design are required. This research program adopted such an approach to the analysis and re-design of RLXs based on systems theory with the overall aim of developing and evaluating new designs to improve safety at RLXs.

iVision 2013-2016 EU
N. A. Stanton (with European project partners)
The i-VISION project aims to support the design and validation of aircraft cockpits, through the exploitation of knowledge-based immersive virtual reality technologies. During the development of the i-VISION platform, it would be of primary focus to facilitate the knowledge existing in several individual components of the cockpit, using a semantic approach for developing the virtual environment. A range of simulation issues will be addressed including:
• Analyse connections between elements of the cockpit in respect to various operating conditions and procedures.
• Visualize the operator’s workflow. Analyse the frequency and allocation of tasks within the cockpit.
• Augment virtual cockpit with semantic annotations. Add intelligence and knowledge to the VR-based simulation of cockpit operations. Virtual objects should be more than a set of faces and vertices. Need to go beyond the current state of scene-graphs, where only geometries exist and no knowledge.
• Create a virtual scene-graph as a knowledge data-base. Currently no logical or functional knowledge exists behind virtual objects.
• Consider the special simulation requirements of different operation conditions (e.g. landing, extreme weather, and increased air-traffic).
The project working cycle will be based on a closed loop between the human pilot, the modern virtual aircraft cockpit interfaces and the operating conditions.

Human Factors of Automated Driving (HF-Auto) 2013-2016 Marie Curie EU
N. A. Stanton (with European project partners)
The main concern is that with highly automated driving, the human operator becomes a supervisor rather than a manual controller, introducing out-of-the-loop problems such as deskilling and loss of situation awareness. Difficult Human Factors questions will have to be answered, such as: how to present the operators with the right information? what are the effects on accident risk and transport efficiency, and who is legally responsible?

Future Flight Deck (FFD) 2014-2016 InnovateUK
N. A Stanton (with partners at BAE Systems, GE Aviation and Coventry University)
This project aims to develop new pilot-centred interface technologies to improve situation awareness, decision making and improve the availability of aircraft in adverse weather. A further major objective is to develop novel system architectures which will allow for the safe and expedient operation of commercial aircraft with a reduced number of crew.

Command Team-work Experimental Testbed 1 (ComTET 1) 2014-2017 BAE Systems
N. A. Stanton
Command teams face the challenges of increasing amounts of data coupled with more automated systems and reduced manning. The future of effective decision making in these teams will be dependent upon high quality empirical evidence from well-controlled experimental studies with high statistical power that can clearly demonstrate the benefits and pitfalls of new team structures, allocation of system functions, ways of working, communication media, interfaces, job aids and work design.