International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357

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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ergon

Evaluating lower body driving posture regarding gas pedal control and
emergency braking: A pilot study
Yanlong Gao a, b, *, Timo Fischer c, Susanne Paternoster a, Ralf Kaiser a, Florian Kurt Paternoster c
a
BMW Group, Knorrstraße 147, 80788, Munich, Germany
b
Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors, Technical University of Darmstadt, Otto-Berndt-Straße 2, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany
c
Department of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62, 80992, Munich, Germany

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Lower body posture influences driving comfort and safety. The posture recommendations from the literature,
Driving posture however, are often based on preferred postures and can be inconsistent due to differences in the experimental
Posture assessment setups. Furthermore, the ranges of preferred postures focusing on sitting comfort are often wide and, therefore,
Occupant packaging
difficult to use for occupant packaging in the automotive industry. To cope with these issues, we developed a
Pedal operation
Biomechanics
task-oriented approach to evaluate the lower body driving posture. We predefined 12 seating positions (4 knee
angles × 3 seating heights) and measured the physical strain, discomfort perception, and task performance of gas
pedal control and emergency braking. Results of the 11 participants showed that seating closer to the front with a
110◦ knee angle caused more foot dorsiflexion for gas pedal control and increased the right leg’s shin muscle
activity and discomfort; seating further back with a 145◦ knee angle decreased emergency braking performance.
In conclusion, our new approach is feasible for objectively and effectively evaluating lower body driving posture.
Relevance to industry: The approach of this study can provide a new perspective on the driving posture assess­
ment. The findings can be utilized to optimize the occupant packaging process in the automotive industry.

1. Introduction
In automotive ergonomics, lower body driving posture is important
for occupant packaging since it involves both sitting and pedal opera­
tion, which are comfort- and safety-relevant. An interior designed
around the optimum postures enables the drivers to sit optimally, sup­
porting driving activities while reducing physical efforts. It is especially
crucial for pedal operation since the pedal reach is the most important
factor in adjusting the seating position (Wang and Bulle, 2017). More­
over, the lower body has less room to shift the position than the upper
limbs, leading to a more static posture during prolonged driving
(Cvetkovic et al., 2020). Thus, the lower body driving posture should be
examined carefully to ensure that the cockpit layout is optimized for the
pedal operation.
Although many studies have recommended preferred driving pos­
tures, one should be careful when applying them for occupant pack­
aging. One issue with the preferred posture assessment is that different
studies often come to distinct suggestions due to differences in the
experimental setup, task, or subject population (Peng et al., 2018;
Schmidt et al., 2014). For instance, the preferred knee angle could be
93◦ –137◦ (Wolf et al., 2022) or 109◦ –157◦ (Hanson et al., 2006). A
possible reason for such different outcomes is the experimental setup:
Wolf et al. (2022) conducted the study in a sedan with road testing; in
contrast, Hanson et al. (2006) used a mock-up in a laboratory, and the
average H30 (SAE International, 2009), i.e., the vertical distance be­
tween the seating reference point and the heel-point, was only 181 mm,
which belongs to the sports car segment. Thereby, engineers should
always apply the recommendations of preferred posture with care since
not all studies reported the relevant experimental parameters such as the
seating height.
Another challenge is that the interindividual joint angle ranges of the
preferred postures focusing on (dis-)comfort are often wide. For
example, the ranges of the preferred knee angles found in the literature
(Cvetkovic et al., 2020; Peng et al., 2018; Wolf et al., 2022) are more
than 40◦ . In this case, the wide knee angle range can lead to a large
variation in the longitudinal seating position (Fig. 1). It could be difficult
for engineers to decide where to position the digital human model in a
car for occupant packaging. Hence, it is worth refining the range
regarding other factors such as biomechanics and physiology. For
instance, Peng et al. (2018) presented that the elbow angle for steering

* Corresponding author. BMW Group, Knorrstraße 147, 80788, Munich, Germany.

E-mail address: yanlong.gao@bmw.de (Y. Gao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2022.103357
Received 7 June 2022; Received in revised form 16 August 2022; Accepted 4 September 2022
Available online 16 September 2022
0169-8141/© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Gao et al.
was less critical for comfort perception and had a range between 92◦ and
162◦ , while Schmidt et al. (2015) showed a much narrower range of
optimum (95◦ ~ 120◦ ) for higher steering precision and steering ve­
locity. This contrast indicated that measuring biomechanical parameters
can help refine the optimal joint angle range and, more importantly,
understand why one posture is better than another. Quantitative mea­
sures such as muscle activity and task performance can be used for this
refinement. Gao et al. (2021) proposed a hierarchical approach using
objective methods to assess driving posture regarding both sitting and
driving tasks. They suggested that an optimum driving posture should
first reduce the physical strain and then enhance the task performance.
Regarding the physical strain of the pedal operation, muscle activity
is an important indicator and was already used for investigating driving
posture. Jammes et al. (2017) examined lower leg muscle activity and
fatigue. They found that the tibialis anterior (TA; shin muscle) was
fatigued after 1 h of simulated driving. Khamis (2018) assessed two
predefined seating positions: the extreme close and far positions to the
front. The TA showed the highest contraction in the front end position,
while gastrocnemius (calf muscle) showed the highest contraction in the
back end position. It indicated that the seating posture influenced the
lower body muscle activity during pedal operation. Hence, it is inter­
esting to identify the boundaries between the optimal and suboptimal
postures within the two extreme positions. Li et al. (2021) investigated
seating postures in 25 different cockpit layouts using biomechanical
simulation. Although several cockpit layouts were suggested, no opti­
mum joint angles were recommended. A recent study by Wolf et al.
(2021) simulated various driving postures from the literature and
calculated optimum joint angles for steering and pedal operations by
minimizing muscle activity. Nevertheless, the optimum knee angle of
149◦ should be validated using empirical study since it is larger than
most knee angles from the literature reviewed by Schmidt et al. (2014).
Regarding the task performance of the pedal operation, few studies
have been conducted, and many have focused on emergency braking
maneuvers. Smith et al. (2015) compared the emergency braking reac­
tion time at two different seating heights, and no significant differences
were found. However, only seating heights of 375 mm or greater than
400 mm were tested, representing the segments of van or minibus (Bubb
et al., 2015) but not the common segments like sedans or SUVs. Also, it is
unknown whether the longitudinal seating position would impact the
performance. Yang et al. (2018) assessed the take-over time and
maximum deceleration in two seating postures with knee angles of 114◦
and 133◦ during autonomous driving simulation and have found no
significant differences. Nevertheless, it could be interesting to investi­
gate emergency braking performance during manual driving within
various knee angles and seating heights. In addition, the gas pedal
operation should also be considered since it is relevant to driving
Fig. 1. Seating position ranges of RAMSIS manikins (Human Solutions GmbH, 2022) at H30 of 300 mm. (a) The 5th percentile female manikins with 93◦ and 137◦
(transparent) knee angles had a 143 mm hip joint distance. (b) The 95th percentile male manikins with 93◦ (transparent) and 137◦ knee angles had a 192 mm hip
joint distance. (c) The 5th percentile female manikin (red) with 93◦ and the 95th percentile male manikin (blue) with 137◦ knee angles had a 383 mm hip joint
distance, larger than many driver seats’ longitudinal adjustability. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the
Web version of this article.)
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357
comfort. No study has investigated whether the driving posture would
affect it to the authors’ knowledge.
Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate lower body postures regarding
the physical strain, discomfort perception, and task performance of gas
pedal control and emergency braking. Rather than assessing subjects’
preferred postures, 12 predefined lower body driving postures covering
four knee angles from the literature were examined to avoid subjectivity
and randomness. We hypothesized that a driver with an optimum
driving posture should have lower physical strain and discomfort and
better task performance of the pedal operation. If the approach were
feasible, we should be able to observe significant changes in the
dependent variables.
2. Methods
2.1. Subjects
Twelve subjects (5 women and 7 men; 39 ± 11 years; height 178.0
cm ± 8.7 cm; weight 72.6 kg ± 14.2 kg) participated in this study. All
subjects had no musculoskeletal injury in the past 12 months and had a
driving experience of at least five years. They were all informed of the
experiment procedure and signed informed consent before the session.
The protocol was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki.
2.2. Experimental design
We chose knee angle and sitting height as the two independent
variables for a within-subjects study design. We defined four target knee
angles (110◦ , 125◦ , 135◦ , and 145◦ ) which covered frequently recom­
mended knee angles from the literature (Schmidt et al., 2014). We also
tested the 95◦ knee angle but eventually excluded it since it produced an
unrealistically close seating position to the front, causing strong
discomfort in the right shin and ankle; five subjects could not even reach
this knee angle in our mock-up. Three seating heights were selected
(200 mm, 250 mm, and 300 mm), representing the H30 values of three
typical passenger vehicle classes (Sports Car, Sedan, and SUV). The
testing order of the knee angles and seating heights were randomized for
each subject. Fig. 2 shows the 12 seating postures of one subject.
A one-seat cockpit mock-up was built to implement these large
variations of seating position. The seat track was laid horizontally so that
the seating height did not change during the knee angle adjustment. The
cushion and backrest inclined 13◦ and 115◦ to the horizon, respectively.
The steering wheel was also longitudinal adjustable to ensure that all
subjects could find a preferred steering wheel position in each seating
position without impacting the pedal control. A standing-type gas pedal
with a 16◦ depression range was mounted on the floor and inclined 69.5◦
Y. Gao et al.
Fig. 2. A subject in all 12 seating postures.
to the horizon. The brake pedal was mounted 62 mm left to the gas
pedal. A miniature force sensor (XFTC321, 0–10 kN; TE Connectivity
company) was placed behind the brake pedal to record the brake-pedal
force. The gas pedal can output the throttle signals directly. Both pedal
signals were simultaneously transmitted into the VICON Nexus software
(described in section 2.3). A monitor was mounted in front of the subject
to show the driving task.
Subjects had to complete three trials of the same 1-min-long driving
task at each seating position. The driving task consisted of a 45 s gas
pedal control phase and a 15 s emergency braking phase. The monitor
showed a template curve of the gas pedal (Fig. 3). The driving task was
to follow the template curve as closely as possible by controlling the gas
pedal. The curve was designed to represent pedal depression between
0% and 80% of its maximum. After entering the emergency braking
phase, the subject first depressed the gas pedal by 1/3 as the baseline
position. After a random audible cue, the subject should immediately
brake to the maximum and hold for 1 s. The 15 s emergency braking
phase served as a time window to, on the one hand, give subjects enough
time to reach the target curve baseline; on the other hand, give the
moderator a wide enough time window to trigger the emergency
braking randomly to imitate a realistic emergency reaction. There was a
15 min familiarization stage prior to the real test.
Fig. 3. The driving task.
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357
2.3. Measurements
Joint angle. We used a VICON motion capture system with 15
infrared cameras (VICON MX T10, sample rate 200 Hz) connected to the
VICON Nexus 2.7.0. (Vicon Motion Systems, 2016) for capturing the
lower body posture. A set of 28 markers was used based on the
commonly used Plug-in Gait (Davis et al., 1991). Only joint angles in the
sagittal plane were considered since they are decisive for the seating
position. The knee angle was defined as the angle between the shank and
thigh. The foot angle was defined as the angle between the shank and the
foot. The neutral foot position was 90◦ . In the preparation stage, we also
measured the right ankle’s active range of motion (AROM). The ankle
AROM is defined as the range between the neutral position and the
maximum flexed position of the foot using active muscle tension without
external support. Using ankle angle (the angle between the actual foot
position to the neutral position, not the foot angle) to AROM ratio, we
can calculate the ankle joint utilization in percentile, indicating how
much AROM the foot has used.
Muscle activity. A wireless EMG system (Myon 320; Myon AG) with
a sampling frequency of 1000 Hz was used to measure muscle activity
for gas pedal control. In advance, we measured four different leg muscles
of two male subjects and eventually chose the TA as the dependent
variable for this study since it showed the most noticeable muscle
Y. Gao et al.
activities, consistent with some previous findings (Hwang, 2011;
Jammes et al., 2017; Khamis et al., 2018). Preparation and measurement
were performed according to SENIAM guidelines (Hermens et al., 2000).
For EMG normalization, we applied reference voluntary contraction
(RVC) instead of the commonly used maximum voluntary contractions
(MVC). It helped reduce the session duration and could still provide
sufficient information about the relative changes in muscle activity. For
RVC, the mean TA activity at the 110◦ knee angle and H30 = 300 mm
configuration was chosen as the reference since the maximum TA
contraction of each subject occurred here.
Discomfort perception. After 3 min of drive (1 min × 3 trials) in
each seating position, the subject rated the overall lower body discom­
fort with a modified CP50-Scale (Ellermeier et al., 1991; Shen and
Parsons, 1997), as Fig. 4 shows. Due to the excessive fineness (Ulherr,
2019), we adopted the scale’s original categories but reduced the sub­
scale from 10 into only two levels in each category. The result is a
numeric discomfort scale from 0 to 5, representing discomfort percep­
tion from “No Discomfort” to “Very Severe Discomfort.” After the global
discomfort rating, the subject should describe the discomfort and the
affected local body areas.
Task performance. The gas pedal controllability was defined as the
root mean square error (RMSE) of the actual pedal depression compared
to the template curve. For emergency braking performance, we
measured the foot transfer time (duration of the foot from leaving the
gas pedal to touching the brake pedal) and the maximum brake pedal
force. All pedal signals were measured at the sample rate of 1000 Hz.
2.4. Data processing
The raw data were processed in MATLAB (The MathWorks Inc,
2018). We used the Biomechanical Toolkit (Tanaka et al., 2013) to
process the VICON 3D motion files and extracted the joint angle data.
The EMG signals were filtered from 10 to 500 Hz, full-wave rectified,
smoothed using a 200 ms moving average filter, and finally normalized
to the reference trial (described in section 2.3, Muscle activity). All pedal
signals were smoothed using a 100 ms moving average filter.
2.5. Statistics
The statistical analysis was conducted in SPSS (IBM Corp, 2019).
Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA (5 levels of knee angle × 3 levels of
seating height) was used for all measures in different seating positions.
The Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted to examine the normality, and
Greenhouse-Geisser correction was used if the sphericity assumption
was violated. Bonferroni post hoc was applied for pairwise comparisons.
If the interaction effect was significant, the simple main effects were
examined. In addition, Pearson correlation analysis was also conducted
to evaluate the relationship between the ankle and knee angles. Un­
reasonable outliers were excluded in advance using three times the
standard deviation. The significance level was <0.05 for all analyses.
3. Results
The results of 11 subjects were analyzed since one subject was
excluded due to data missing. Table 1 shows the details of the 11 sub­
jects. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of the dependent
variables in all seating configurations.
Foot angle. The ANOVA results showed a significant effect of knee
angle, F(1.3, 13.3) = 185.0, p < .001, and a significant effect of seating
height on the foot angle, F(2, 20) = 35.8, p < .001. Post hoc
Fig. 4. Discomfort rating scale.
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357
Table 1
The means and standard deviations of the details from the subjects included in
the results and discussion (N = 11). * Note that the AROM of plantarflexion is
negative.
Subjects Age Height Ankle AROM of Ankle AROM of
(years) (mm) dorsiflexion (◦ ) plantarflexion (◦ )*
4 women 40 ± 11 1787 ± 28 ± 6 - 29 ± 9
& 7 men 92
comparisons showed that the foot angle differed at each knee angle and
seating height (p < .05). Furthermore, the Person’s correlation analysis
revealed that the foot and knee angles were strongly positively corre­
lated, r(9) ≥ 0.99, p < .001. This correlation was also expressed in ankle
joint utilization (Fig. 5a).
TA activity. First to notice is that the TA activity at 110◦ knee angle
and H30 = 300 mm had a mean of 100% without deviation since this
configuration was the reference for EMG normalization (Fig. 5b). The
ANOVA results showed a significant interaction effect between the knee
angle and seating height on TA activity, F(6, 60) = 6.1, p < .001. The
knee angle had a significant simple main effect on TA activity at each
seating height (p < .001), but the simple main effect of the seating height
was only significant at 110◦ knee angle (p = .006).
Lower body discomfort. There was a significant effect of knee
angle, F(1.7, 10.3) = 15.0, p = .001, and a significant effect of seating
height on the lower body discomfort, F(2, 12) = 5.1, p = .025. Post hoc
comparisons showed that the discomfort rating with the 110◦ knee angle
was significantly worse than 125◦ and 135◦ (p = .001), and it was
significantly worse at 145◦ than 135◦ (p = .031). As Fig. 6 shows, 61%
and 27% of the subjects perceived “medium” to “very severe” discomfort
at 110◦ and 145◦ knee angles, respectively. In contrast, only 6% and 9%
of subjects perceived “medium” discomfort at 125◦ and 135◦ knee an­
gles, respectively. Moreover, 36% and 55% of the subjects felt “no
discomfort” at 125◦ and 135◦ knee angles. Regarding the local discom­
fort report, the right ankle joint was the most reported discomfort body
area at 110◦ knee angle, followed by the right shin and foot. On the other
side, four subjects mentioned that the seating position was “too far” at
the 145◦ knee angle, and two subjects expressed their “insecure” feeling
about “losing control” of the brake pedal so that they would not choose
this position for real-world driving.
Gas pedal controllability. There was a significant effect of knee
angle, F(3, 30) = 3.02, p = .045, but no significant effect of seating
height on the gas pedal controllability, F(2, 20) = 0.90, p = .42. Post hoc
comparisons did not show any significant between-group differences
though (p > .05).
Foot transfer time during emergency braking. There was a sig­
nificant effect of knee angle, F(3, 30) = 6.53, p = .002, but no significant
effect of seating height on the foot transfer time during emergency
braking, F(2, 20) = 2.60, p = .099. Post hoc comparisons showed
significantly faster foot transfer at 110◦ and 125◦ knee angles than the
145◦ by 13.83 ms (p = .032) and 13.97 ms (p = .006), respectively
(Fig. 7a).
Maximum brake pedal force. There was a significant effect of knee
angle, F(3, 30) = 4.96, p = .006, and seating height on the maximum
brake pedal force, F(2, 20) = 5.40, p = .013 (Fig. 7b). However, post hoc
comparisons did not show significant between-group differences (p >
.05).
4. Discussion
4.1. Physical strain vs. discomfort
The foot dorsiflexion was the main cause of the discomfort at 110◦
knee angle since the TA is responsible for dorsiflexing the foot. As Fig. 5b
shows, the TA activity increased as the knee angle decreased from 135◦
to 110◦ . At the same time, the foot moved from plantarflexion to
Y. Gao et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357

Table 2
The means and standard deviations of the dependent variables (N = 11).
* Note that the ankle joint utilization in plantarflexion is negative.
** The gas pedal controllability is presented in the RMSE of the actual pedal depression compared to the template curve.
Predefined knee angle (◦ ) 110 125 135 145

H30 (mm) M SD M SD M SD M SD

Mean ankle angle (◦ ) 200 82.0 3.9 87.9 3.0 92.6 4.1 98.6 4.3
250 79.0 4.4 85.8 4.5 90.7 4.3 96.1 4.4
300 76.4 4.5 83.6 5.0 88.4 4.7 96.0 5.7
Mean ankle joint utilization (%)* 200 29.6 16.1 7.8 11.8 − 9.3 16.4 − 31.9 16.3
250 40.7 16.7 15.0 17.6 − 2.6 15.9 − 22.7 15.1
300 49.0 14.6 22.9 18.2 6.0 16.0 − 21.1 20.4
Mean TA activity (%) 200 73.9 19.0 55.2 9.2 49.5 12.6 35.7 9.0
250 82.9 17.3 66.2 26.7 49.0 16.5 39.0 12.5
300 100.0 0.0 62.9 16.5 48.0 9.9 35.3 12.7
Discomfort rating 200 2.2 1.3 1.0 1.0 0.4 0.7 1.5 1.3
250 2.8 1.0 1.2 1.1 0.9 1.0 1.5 1.4
300 3.7 1.3 1.0 0.9 1.0 1.2 2.4 1.3
Gas pedal controllability (%)** 200 2.0 0.6 2.0 0.4 2.0 0.5 2.0 0.5
250 2.0 0.4 1.9 0.4 1.9 0.4 1.9 0.4
300 2.1 0.4 1.9 0.4 2.0 0.4 2.0 0.3
Foot transition time (ms) 200 179.6 39.9 189.5 48.5 195.5 47.9 199.5 38.6
250 178.6 25.2 172.8 24.9 184.6 30.9 190.3 27.2
300 188.8 48.0 184.4 42.8 196.8 22.0 198.7 41.9
Max. brake pedal force (N) 200 373.4 211.4 343.8 172.0 317.8 120.5 292.0 118.9
250 309.3 134.0 306.9 148.8 293.9 102.3 254.0 103.0
300 296.1 152.6 309.9 150.6 299.0 137.3 242.5 91.2

Fig. 5. Means and standard deviations (N = 11) of ankle joint utilization (a) and TA activity (b). Note that the plantarflexion is negative.

dorsiflexion (Fig. 5a), and the discomfort rating also got worse (Fig. 6).
For the 110◦ knee angle, the foot dorsiflexed on average up to 49.0% of
the AROM. In addition, the calf muscles were stretched as the foot
dorsiflexed, producing additional passive tension that TA had to resist.
Similar to our findings, Jammes et al. (2017) also reported that the
TA was fatigued after 1 h of simulated driving, although no driving
posture was mentioned or compared; Pannetier (2012) reported that the
participants tended to choose a clutch pedal layout that reduced the foot
dorsiflexion when depressing the pedal. Furthermore, Hwang (2011)
presented that TA was activated when the driver held the foot on the
pedals for the next operation. It suggested that the TA can be activated
more frequently in everyday driving compared to our study since we
only measured TA activity for the gas pedal operation, which could
cause fatigue in the right shin. Additionally, Kang et al. (2014) presented
that occupational drivers could have a reduced ankle AROM, indicating
that they could be more sensitive to foot dorsiflexion.
On the other hand, the seating position at 145◦ knee angle was too far
for the braking maneuver, according to the discomfort report. The
stretched-out right leg could lead to higher activation of calf muscles
(Hwang, 2011; Khamis, 2018). Furthermore, the calf muscles could be
activated higher with H30 = 300 mm since the seat cushion could hinder
the thigh extension during braking and force the foot to plantarflex
more. Therefore, further investigation on calf muscle activity for braking
maneuvers is needed.
Thus, our findings suggested that the 110◦ knee angle was too small
for gas pedal operation due to high TA muscle activity and discomfort,
and the 145◦ knee angle was too large for brake pedal operation due to
outstretched right leg during braking.
4.2. Task performance
The driving posture might not have an impact on the gas pedal
controllability. Despite the significant effect of knee angle on it, the
small differences might not be relevant to the actual difference in real
driving. A possible reason might be that our driving task was not difficult
enough: It had a low changing rate than the real-world gas pedal signals
found in the literature (Enev et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2013) thus could
be followed easily. Another reason could be that the biomechanical
changes were not decisive for the gas pedal controllability regardless of
the task difficulty. Other factors like the individual physical agility or

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Y. Gao et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357

Fig. 6. Discomfort rating distribution (N = 11).

Fig. 7. Means and standard deviations (N = 11) of foot transfer time (a) and maximum brake pedal force (b).

coordination ability might be more relevant. Either way, further inves­ angle was too far regarding the emergency braking performance.
tigation is needed.
The foot transfer time at 145◦ was about 14 ms slower than at 110◦
4.3. Optimum knee angles for gas and brake pedal operation
and 125◦ positions, corresponding to about 0.2 m more travel distance at
50 km/h. However, the stopping distance at 50 km/h ranged from 25 m
By excluding the suboptimal knee angles for each criterion, our
to 35 m (Erd et al., 2018; Hichim, 2020; Lyubenov, 2011; Nowosielski
findings suggest that at a seating height of 200 mm, 250 mm, or 300 mm,
et al., 2021), meaning the difference would be under 1%. Nevertheless,
the knee angle between 125◦ and 135◦ were optimal for reducing the
any optimization should be considered for better safety. We also found
physical strain and discomfort and enhancing the emergency braking
two different strategies for foot transfer, similar to some previous studies
performance (Table 3). It is worth noting that the current study is a pilot
(Hwang, 2011; Palmertz et al., 1998; Xi et al., 2018). A driver with a
study, and the findings should be interpreted and applied carefully due
longer foot would rather pivot the foot around the heel point to brake
to the limitations described in section 4.4.
than lift the leg. Thus, further investigation is needed on whether these
two strategies lead to different foot transfer times.
The greatest brake pedal force occurred at the 110◦ knee angle and Table 3
Overview of the knee angle ratings at each criterion. Suboptimal angles were
decreased as the knee angle increased, similar to the findings from Hahn
filled with “x". The seating position with 110◦ knee angles was too close to the
et al. (2014). They reported that a knee flexion between 58◦ and 63◦
front for gas pedal operation, and 145◦ was too far for emergency braking.
(122◦ and 117◦ knee angle in our context) was optimal for knee exten­
sion at an angular velocity between 60◦ /s and 120◦ /s, and the maximum Knee angle (◦ ) 110 125 135 145

knee torques gradually decreased when the knee extended beyond the Ankle joint utilization ×
optimal knee angle. On average, we could observe the smallest brake TA Activity ×
Discomfort rating
pedal force at the 145◦ knee angle (Fig. 7b), which could explain the
× ×
Gas pedal controllability
subjects’ concern about the insufficient depression of the brake pedal. Foot transfer time ×
Thus, our findings suggested that the seating posture at 145◦ knee Maximum brake pedal force ×

6
Y. Gao et al.
As mentioned in the Introduction, the experimental setup can impact
the driving posture. Compared to the other studies, the major difference
of the current study is that we used predefined postures instead of
preferred postures. A total of 12 predefined postures were tested for each
subject, significantly more than many other studies which tested only
one or three preferred postures. The main benefit of our approach is that
the results showed a pattern of the dependent variables changing with
the lower body postures, such as muscle activities or performances. With
this evidence-based information, boundaries between optimal and sub­
optimal postures could be determined to benefit occupant packaging.
However, one drawback of this approach is that it could be time-
consuming. Thus, we limited the test duration at each posture to 3
min, which was short compared to some studies (Hanson et al., 2006;
Kyung and Nussbaum, 2009) but proved to be sufficient for our purpose,
including identifying and describing the discomfort perception that
focused on the pedal operation. In addition, we randomized the test
order to eliminate possible fatigue impact.
Another important feature of the current study is that we have
measured not only subjective parameters, i.e., the discomfort percep­
tion, but also objective parameters specifically for gas and brake pedal
operation, such as EMG and task performances. This approach helped us
understand why some postures are “preferred” often. Using this method,
one can find the impact factors of the optimum postures more precisely
than only using a global subjective rating scale.
Regarding optimum knee angles for driving, our findings (125◦ ~
135◦ ) agreed partially with the recommendations from Hanson et al.
(2006) with 109◦ ~ 157◦ and Kyung and Nussbaum (2009) with 123◦ ~
142◦ . However, our suggestion is noticeably narrower. The reason might
be that our approach tried to find an “intersection” of the optimum knee
angles of each subject instead of a “collection” of the preferable ones.
The issue with the “collection” method is that a driver would not accept
the entire range of the collected angles (interindividual range), as Peng
et al. (2017) pointed out. To cope with this issue, Peng et al. (2017) and
Wolf et al. (2022) have investigated the intraindividual variability of
preferred joint angles. Peng et al. (2017) reported an intraindividual
range of 14.9◦ , while Wolf et al. (2022) reported an intraindividual
range of 9.5◦ .
Nevertheless, the intraindividual range is only internal relative but
does not refer to an absolute angle range as our study did. For example,
two drivers can have the same 10◦ intraindividual range, but one’s range
can be 115◦ –125◦ , while another one’s range can be 125◦ –135◦ . It would
be interesting to see how the intraindividual range of each subject dis­
tributes over the entire interindividual range. One can create a proba­
bility distribution and predict which angle range is preferred more often
over the others. In contrast, our results could already be seen as a pre­
liminary probability distribution model with parameters such as joint
utilization, muscle activities, discomfort perception, and performance
across the 12 given postures. Using this distribution, engineers can
customize the evaluation criteria and use them to evaluate postures and
find the optimum.
4.4. Limitations and proposals for improvements
Due to the nature of the pilot study, the current study has only
collected valid data from 11 subjects. Thus, the results should only be
considered a preliminary suggestion and be further investigated with a
larger sample size to improve the statistical power, especially for safety-
relevant variables like task performance. Since an ergonomic vehicle
layout should be able to accommodate a wide range of populations,
smaller subjects like the 5th percentile women should also be considered
in the future study. Another limitation was that only one pedal layout
was tested for all three seating heights. However, the pedal inclination in
production cars depends on vehicle classes, i.e., flatter in an SUV and
steeper in a Sports Car. Thus, the future study should use individual gas
and brake pedal inclination for each seating height to be more repre­
sentative of real cars. Furthermore, it should be noted that we used the
7
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 91 (2022) 103357
standing-type gas pedal. Investigation with a handing type gas pedal
could be interesting. We also recommend measuring more muscle ac­
tivities, e.g., the knee extensor and foot plantar flexor, especially for
braking maneuvers. Also, the maximum voluntary contraction should be
conducted to assess the exact muscle activation level. This could also
help to find the relation between the muscle activation level and
discomfort perception. Lastly, we suggest increasing the difficulty of the
gas pedal control task to match real-world driving situations for more
explanatory power.
5. Conclusion
In this study, we assessed 12 predefined driving postures (4 knee
angles × 3 seating heights) for gas pedal control and emergency braking
regarding physical strain, discomfort perception, and task performance.
All criteria but gas pedal controllability were significantly influenced by
knee angle, indicating that our approach could be used for an effective
driving posture assessment to find the optimum. We found the 110◦ knee
angle too small for gas pedal control, causing foot dorsiflexion and
higher TA activity with stronger discomfort in the right shin and ankle.
On the other hand, the 145◦ knee angle was too large for emergency
braking, causing a stretched-out right leg, worse discomfort rating,
longer foot transfer time, and less brake pedal force. Thus, for a seating
height between 200 mm and 300 mm, we suggest a knee angle between
125◦ and 135◦ for gas and brake pedal operation. Although further in­
vestigations are needed, our findings indicate that the task-oriented
approach could help build a quantitative evaluation standard to differ­
entiate optimal and suboptimal driving postures.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author statement
Yanlong Gao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation,
Writing - Original Draft.
Timo Fischer: Methodology, Investigation, Data Curation, Formal
analysis.
Susanne Paternoster: Supervision, Writing - Review & Editing.
Ralf Kaiser: Supervision.
Florian Kurt Paternoster: Writing - Review & Editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
We thank Dr. Bettina Abendroth (Technical University of Darmstadt)
for reviewing this paper. Special thanks go to Dipl.-Des. Peer-Oliver
Wagner for supporting this work.
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