Abstract
This study aims at investigating the effects of highway landscapes and alignments on drivers’ eye movement behavior and emergency reaction time, based on a driving simulator experiment. In this study, four simulation scenarios are evaluated including open space, semiopen space, semiclosed space, and enclosed space landscapes on highways in Yunnan Province, China. Twenty-four experienced drivers participated in a 6-kilometer driving experiment in each landscape scenario. Each subject was required to drive at 80 km/h in the scenarios and the driving behavior data were collected. Three different data analysis methods were employed: (1) descriptive analysis of the characteristics of drivers’ visual fixation area; (2) statistical tests of emergency reaction time with drivers’ demographic characteristics, highway landscapes, and alignments; and (3) multiple linear regression analysis of emergency reaction time, highway landscapes, and alignments. The results show that emergency reaction time is significantly influenced by highway landscapes and alignments, and the multiple linear regression model built in this experiment could accurately predict drivers’ emergency reaction time in different highway landscapes and alignments.
Highlights
It has been found that more than 70% of traffic crashes are attributed to human factors, and approximately 17% are caused by the road environment, including highway landscapes
A good highway landscape allows the drivers to feel comfortable and concentrated, and to be more responsive and to operate the vehicle more accurately, which could lead to reduction of traffic crashes [3,4,5]
The eye movement data of subjects acquired during the driving processes in different highway landscapes have been analyzed
Summary
It has been found that more than 70% of traffic crashes are attributed to human factors, and approximately 17% are caused by the road environment, including highway landscapes. The driver’s fixation point changes with different landscapes, which is mainly manifested by its position, duration, and change. More and more research has paid attention to drivers’ fixation point characteristics and eye movement and gradually introduced them into the field of transportation. Most of these studies generally focus on the suitability evaluation of road alignment [7,8,9], psychological load assessment of drivers [10], driver fatigue detection [11], and design of traffic safety facilities. We analyzed the characteristics of driver’s fixation point in different highway landscapes
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