Measuring Pedestrians’ Gap Acceptance When Interacting with Vehicles - A Human Gait Oriented Approach

Abstract

A significant variable describing the pedestrians' behavior when interacting with vehicles is gap acceptance, which is the pedestrians' choice of temporal and spatial gaps when crossing in front of vehicles. After a review of relevant approaches to measure gap acceptance used in studies, this paper presents a novel approach, which is suitable for the usage in field experiments and allows a natural crossing behavior of subjects. In particular, following a detailed analysis of forces exerted during human gait, an algorithm was developed that is capable of identifying the accurate temporal point at which subjects start crossing as the basis for calculating gap acceptance. Pretest results show the system's stability and reliability as well as the gait algorithm's robustness in determining the correct gap acceptance value. The human gait oriented approach can serve as a basis for designing interaction processes between pedestrians and automated vehicles that are a focus of current research efforts.