Drivers’ Visual Characteristics of Urban Expressway Based on Eye Tracker

Abstract

AbstractIn order to compare and analyze the visual characteristics of drivers in the congested and unblocked state of urban expressways, real vehicle tests were carried out on the eastern expressway in Changchun City using the German Dikablis eye tracker and its supporting D-Lab software. The test data was processed by using descriptive statistical analysis and non-parametric inspection methods to quantify the impact of congestion on the driver’s visual characteristics. The results show that drivers mainly obtain traffic information by gaze when driving on the expressway, and the gaze points are mostly concentrated on the road vehicles; the driver’s gaze duration and scan duration in the congested state account for the highest proportions in the 200–250 ms and 0–25 ms time periods, respectively; the average gaze duration and the average scan duration of the drivers in the congested state were higher than those in the unblocked state. The driver's gaze duration and saccade duration in the two states are significantly different, and the Mann–Whitney U test results are less than 0.05; the pupil area changes more drastically in the congested state, and the pupil area change rate is 38.67%.KeywordsCongestion stateUrban expresswayVisual characteristicsGaze durationPupil area