Highlights Median’s role in pedestrian street crossing safety and trust with AVs was explored. VR experiments allowing participants’ actual free walking were conducted. Medians especially ensure successful street crossing and collision reduction, even for AVs with high speeds or small gaps. Medians can be an effective win–win alternative to AV-generated future spare road space.

    Abstract As traffic lanes and on-street parking spots can potentially be downsized with the introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs), the possibility of additional spare road space becoming available arises in future urban streets. While discussions on converting the leftover space into pedestrian-friendly alternatives exist, allocating that limited space to which alternative is foreseen to be another practical issue shared in both urban and transportation planning. However, evidence-based guidance on the issue provided from the actual verification on whether or to what extent the proposed alternatives may have an effect seems to be absent. Therefore, with an emphasis on pedestrian safety, this study focused on the “median strip” alternative as a first example and, through a VR simulation experiment aimed at empirically examining its suggested role on enhancing street crossing safety and further exploring its possible influence on pedestrians’ trust toward autonomous driving. With 99 participants, perceived safety (individual assessments of safety), performance-based safety (crossing success/abandonment and collision occurrence), and trust were either questioned or recorded for nine scenarios with varying crossing conditions. A combination of multilevel models and cross-tabulation results indicate that medians seem especially significant in ensuring the performance-based safety results of pedestrians even when AVs are driving at high speeds or with smaller gaps, thus suggesting it a win–win option for both. Insights and implications on the role and management of medians in future streets are further provided.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Autonomous vehicles and street design: Exploring the role of medians in enhancing pedestrian street crossing safety using a virtual reality experiment


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2023-04-23




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Using Immersive Virtual Reality to Evaluate Pedestrian Street Crossing Decisions at a Roundabout

    Wu, H. / Ashmead, D.H. / Bodenheimer, B. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2009


    Children's risk assessment in street crossing using virtual reality

    Sando, Ole Johan / Kleppe, Rasmus / Sandseter, Ellen Beate Hansen | Elsevier | 2023


    PEDESTRIAN CROSSING MANAGEMENT USING AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

    BARRERA OSWALDO PEREZ / MORALES GERARDO | European Patent Office | 2024

    Free access

    PEDESTRIAN CROSSING MANAGEMENT USING AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

    PEREZ BARRERA OSWALDO / MORALES GERARDO | European Patent Office | 2024

    Free access

    Whole-process bidirectional safety early warning system for pedestrian crossing street

    LIU WENBIN / ZHU XINPING | European Patent Office | 2024

    Free access