Reducing the time loss bias: Two ways to improved driving safety and energy efficiency

•Drivers overestimate time losses produced by decreasing from highway speed.•Two behavioral interventions succeeded to reduce this bias in the laboratory.•Providing pace information to the participants had only short term effects.•Adaptively providing actual time losses to the participants eliminated the bias. The time loss bias describes the systematic overestimation of time lost when decelerating from a relatively high speed. In the present study, we investigated the debiasing effect of two educational interventions, the Paceometer (Peer and Gamliel, 2013) and a newly designed Pop-up assistant, in a video-based controlled-access highway driving scenario. The Paceometer provides participants with pace information (min/km) added to the common speedometer. The Pop-up assistant informs about the time lost when decreasing speed according to a specific situation. A mixed-design ANOVA confirmed the improvement of time loss estimations for both debiasing tools and the superiority of the Pop-up assistant, which produced temporal spillover effects. We discuss potential explanations in terms of simplifying information and anchoring and the potential benefits of both tools to reduce risky driving, fuel costs and range restrictions of electric vehicles.