Analysis of distracted pedestrians’ waiting time: Head-Mounted Immersive Virtual Reality application

Arash Kalatian,Anae Sobhani,Bilal Farooq

doi:10.17815/cd.2020.32

Arash Kalatian, Anae Sobhani + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.17815/cd.2020.32

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the distracted pedestrians’ waiting time before crossing the road in three conditions: 1) not distracted, 2) distracted with a smartphone and 3) distracted with a smartphone in the presence of virtual flashing LED lights on the crosswalk as a safety measure. For the means of data collection, we adapted an in-house developed virtual immersive reality environment (VIRE). A total of 42 volunteers participated in the experiment. Participants’ positions and head movements were recorded and used to calculate walking speeds, acceleration and deceleration rates, surrogate safety measures, time spent playing smartphone game, etc. After a descriptive analysis on the data, the effects of these variables on pedestrians’ waiting time are analyzed by employing a cox proportional hazard model. Several factors were identified as having impact on waiting time. The results show that an increase in initial walk speed, percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during crossing, bigger minimum missed gaps and unsafe crossings resulted in shorter waiting times. On the other hand, an increase in the percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during waiting time, crossing time and maze solving time, means longer waiting times for participants.

Highlights

Pedestrian crossing behaviour is a topic of interest as it gives insights into traffic lights design, pedestrian safety, roadway layouts design and traffic flow optimization
Research on pedestrian waiting time analysis have gained popularity as pedestrian-vehicle accidents result in a large proportion of total accident deaths
According to the Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics, proportion of fatal accidents involving pedestrians to all fatal accidents has increased from 11.8% in 2005 to 15.2% in 2015 [2,3]

Summary

Introduction

Pedestrian crossing behaviour is a topic of interest as it gives insights into traffic lights design, pedestrian safety, roadway layouts design and traffic flow optimization. Research on pedestrian waiting time analysis have gained popularity as pedestrian-vehicle accidents result in a large proportion of total accident deaths. Pedestrian violations, i.e. J-waling, disobeying pedestrian lights and failure to yield to vehicles, have been a major source of traffic injury and fatality in recent years [1]. For unsignalized intersections, Hamed [8] developed a cox proportional hazard model to identify factors affecting waiting time and number of unsuccessful attempts required before a safe crossing. Their Results suggest that having accident experience, car ownership, number of people on the crosswalk, age, gender, type of trip and vehicle gap time are important factors in determining wait time before crossing. In terms of the effects of waiting time on pedestrian violations, Brosseau et al [4] analysed video data of signalized intersections and identified several factors that contribute to dangerous crossing, including maximum waiting time and clearance time

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