One of the primary impediments hindering the widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) among pedestrians is their limited comprehension of AVs. This study employs virtual reality (VR) to provide pedestrians with an immersive environment for engaging with and comprehending AVs during unmarked midblock multilane crossings. Diverse AV driving behaviors were modeled: negotiation behavior with a yellow signal indication and non-yielding behavior with a blue signal indication. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of various factors, such as AV behavior and signaling and pedestrian past behavior, on pedestrians’ perception of AVs. Before and after the VR experiment, participants completed surveys that assessed their perceptions of AVs and focused on two main aspects: attitude and system effectiveness. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test results demonstrated that both the pedestrians’ overall attitude score toward AVs and their trust in the effectiveness of AV systems significantly increased following the VR experiment. Notably, individuals who exhibited a greater trust in the yellow signals were more inclined to display a higher attitude score toward AVs and to augment their trust in the effectiveness of AV systems. This indicates that the design of the yellow signal instills pedestrians with greater confidence in their interactions with AVs. Further, pedestrians who exhibit more aggressive crossing behavior are less likely to change their perception toward AVs as compared with pedestrians with more positive crossing behaviors. It is concluded that integrating the AV behavior and signaling devised in this paper within an immersive VR setting facilitated pedestrian engagement with AVs, thereby changing their perception of AVs.
How Does Pedestrians’ Perception Toward Autonomous Vehicles Change During Unmarked Midblock Multilane Crossings?
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
2024-11-11
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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