Response of Vulnerable Road Users to Visual Information from Autonomous Vehicles in Shared Spaces

Abstract

Completely unmanned autonomous vehicles have been anticipated for a while. Initially, these are expected to drive only under certain conditions on some roads, and advanced functionality is required to cope with the ever-increasing challenges of safety. To enhance the public's perception of road safety and trust in new vehicular technologies, we investigate in this paper the effect of several interaction paradigms with vulnerable road users by developing and applying algorithms for the automatic analysis of pedestrian body language. We assess behavioral patterns and determine the impact of the coexistence of AVs and other road users on general road safety in a shared space for VRUs and vehicles. Results showed that the implementation of visual communication cues for interacting with VRUs is not necessarily required for a shared space in which informal traffic rules apply.

Analysis of visual risk perception model for braking control behaviour of human drivers: A literature review

“…For example, Schneemanne and Gohl [67] found that over half of test drivers who drove at 30 km/h and 50 km/h initially braked at a TTC of 3 to 4 s. In addition, all the participants braked at the reaction threshold of 2.5 s. Alvarez et al. [77] found that 71.7% of pedestrians chose to cross the road at a TTCT of 2–8 s. Some researchers have indicated that observers can directly perceive special information such as τ to determine whether they are on an impending collision course [11, 78]. The variable τ has inspired research to study judgements based on the time remaining.…”

“…Alvarez et al. [77] found that TTC estimation was influenced by the chromaticity of the human‐machine interface of the approaching vehicle.…”

Chair for Intelligent Transportation Systems–Sustainable Transport Logistics 4.0

“…The framework was deployed in a real vehicle and tested in three experimental cases that showed a variety of communication messages to pedestrians in a shared-space scenario [6], [7]. The team investigated the automatic analysis of pedestrian body language and determined behavioral patterns, thereby enabling the assessment of the impact of the coexistence of AVs and other road users on general road safety in a shared space for vulnerable road users (VRUs) and vehicles [8]. The perception of a road situation as safe in an environment that potentially influences well-being is also a topic of research that makes it possible to determine several levels of trust, uncertainty, and fear [9].…”

A Research Platform for Autonomous Vehicles Technologies Research in the Insurance Sector

“…The behavior of pedestrians was analyzed, concluding that a communication system proves to be positive in the interaction between the pedestrian and the vehicle. Moreover, the behavior of pedestrians was further studied in [27], where the vehicle detected the pose of pedestrians in order to predict their intentions.…”