Record Details

Study of Gap Acceptance and Walking Speeds of Pedestrians Using Virtual Reality Simulation

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Study of Gap Acceptance and Walking Speeds of Pedestrians Using Virtual Reality Simulation
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WU75MR
 
Creator Figueroa Medina, Alberto M
Valdés Díaz, Didier M
Colucci Rios, Benjamin
Cardona-Rodríguez. Natacha N.
Bustillo, Alcibiades
Chamorro, Andrés
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The focus placed on pedestrian safety is based on the alarming increase in fatalities in the U.S. in recent years. The 6,283 pedestrian fatalities observed in 2018 was the largest number on record from the previous 28 years. The study of pedestrian behavior and the evaluation of new and innovative pedestrian safety countermeasures are needed to reduce road-related fatalities. The objective of this study was to carry out a roadway crossing experiment using virtual reality (VR) simulation equipment. The study analyzed the behavior of pedestrians when making the decision to cross at an uncontrolled location on a one-lane and a two-lane urban street. The experiment included eight scenarios showing different vehicle speeds and vehicle gap values. The goal was to measure the ability of the subjects to detect safe vehicle gap times in traffic to cross the road and their walking speeds when crossing. Comparisons between gender and age groups were made based on the factors measured in the experiment. The average time of the gaps taken by the pedestrians varied from 4.5 to 4.7 s for males and from 4.4 to 4.8 s for females in the one-lane crossing setting. For the two-lane crossing setting, the average time of the gaps taken increased from 6.6 to 7 seconds for males and from 6.4 to 6.7 s for females. The average walking speed varied from 4.11 to 4.75 ft/s depending on the vehicle gap and speed combinations. Although no major differences were observed between the male/female speed distributions, it was found that 7% of the female population needed to address the crossing at a faster pace than the male group. The age group with the lowest crossing success rate of 89.6% was found for the 66-85 age group when crossing the one-lane road. This result indicates that older pedestrians are most exposed to traffic accidents when crossing at an uncontrolled location, especially when facing high vehicle speeds. The results from this initial experiment using the VR headset demonstrate the potential benefits and promise of the use of this new technology to study human behavior in a controlled scenario. The results show that the recent advances in VR have improved the fidelity of the technology allowing measurement of human factors that reflect real-life values.
 
Subject Engineering
 
Contributor Heiden, Jacob