Applications of Driving Simulators in Intelligent Transportation Systems: Investigating Driver Behaviour under Variable Speed Limits

This study explores driver perception and compliance with variable speed limits (VSLs) within Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), emphasizing the critical role of human behavior in traffic efficiency and safety. Using driving simulators (DSs), it bridges the gap between model-based and safety-oriented VSL studies and real-world driver responses, providing insights into behavioral realism and adaptive system performance. A structured narrative review was conducted to synthesize studies using DSs to analyze driver behavior and compliance under VSLs within ITS. Following strict inclusion criteria and database searches, 24 high-quality studies (1994–2025) were selected and systematically analyzed to identify methodological trends, research gaps, and behavioral insights. DSs prove to be powerful, cost-effective tools for analyzing driver perception, compliance, and behavioral adaptation under VSLs, offering realistic, safe testing environments for ITS research. Future studies should integrate DS experiments with connected vehicle data, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven behavioral models, and cross-cultural analyses to design adaptive, human-centered, and globally applicable VSL systems.