Abstract
There are different proposals in the literature on how to protect pedestrians using warning systems to alert drivers of their presence. They can be based on onboard perception systems or wireless communications. The evaluation of these systems has been focused on testing their ability to detect pedestrians. A problem that has received much less attention is the possibility of generating too many alerts in the warning systems. In this paper, we propose and analyze four different algorithms to take the decision on generating alerts in a warning system that is based on direct wireless communications between vehicles and pedestrians. With the algorithms, we explore different strategies to reduce unnecessary alerts. The feasibility of the implementation of the algorithms was evaluated with a deployment using real equipment, and tests were carried out to verify their behavior in real scenarios. The ability of each algorithm to reduce unnecessary alerts was evaluated with realistic simulations in an urban scenario, using a traffic simulator with vehicular and pedestrian flows. The results show the importance of tackling the problem of driver overload in warning systems, and that it is not straightforward to predict the load of alerts generated by an algorithm in a large-scale deployment, in which there are multiple interactions between vehicles and pedestrians.
Highlights
One of the social needs related to road safety is the reduction in the number of accidents that involve vulnerable road users (VRUs)
A different problem that has received much less attention in the literature is the potential overload of drivers by a constant flow of alerts generated in the warning system. This problem is addressed in this paper, in which we explore strategies for a warning system to reduce unnecessary alerts
To validate the correct behavior of the warning algorithms, we first needed to verify that they created alerts for any situation that results in a danger to a pedestrian, i.e., that the filtered alerts were really unnecessary alerts
Summary
One of the social needs related to road safety is the reduction in the number of accidents that involve vulnerable road users (VRUs) This group includes cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians, and their common feature is that, in an accident, they are not protected by a body vehicle. The traffic accident statistics show that the number of road accidents involving VRUs is not decreasing at the same rate as other types of accidents [1] These antecedents justify that one of the priorities of the research strategy of the European Union is the development of new information and communication technologies focused on improving the safety of VRUs. pedestrians are the most vulnerable group of VRUs, since they are the passive part of accidents and, in the event of an accident, their injuries are usually important. Using a mechanism to provide additional awareness to drivers seems to be a simple approach to improve the safety of pedestrians Some systems with this aim have been proposed in the literature. These warning systems help drivers to detect, in a better way than using only their senses, situations in which there is a risk
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