Abstract
According to the US Department of Transportation, in 2013 14 % of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians. In Japan, 38.4 % of 2015 traffic fatalities were pedestrians. Studying pedestrian behavior is an important step in preventing pedestrian fatalities on the road. However, to investigate pedestrian behavior, several factors need to be considered. First and foremost, the safety of the participants must be assured. Second, the study environment needs to be controlled to prevent confounding variables and allow for repeated trials. Finally, the costs to develop and perform the study must also be minimized. To address these obstacles, we propose the implementation of a virtual reality (VR)-based simulator for studies of behavior and task performance with full motion. This simulator is composed of a Unity 5 environment, Oculus Rift VR headset, and Kinect or motion capture based position tracking. In this paper, we will discuss the development of the simulator, limitations, and future work.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Zito, G.A., Cazzoli, D., Scheffler, L., Jäger, M., Müri, R.M., Mosimann, U.P., Nyffeler, T., Mast, F.W., Nef, T.: Street crossing behavior in younger and older pedestrians: an eye- and head-tracking study. BMC Geriatrics 15, 176 (2015)
Charron, C., Festoc, A., Guéguen, N.: Do child pedestrians deliberately take risks when they are in a hurry? An experimental study on a simulator. Transp. Res. Part F Psychol. Behav. 15(6), 635–643 (2012)
Cavallo, V., Lobjois, R., Dommes, A., Vienne, F.: Elderly pedestrians’ visual timing strategies in a simulated street-crossing situation. In: 5th International Symposium on Human Factors in Driving Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design, pp. 499–505 (2009)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.: Traffic safety facts: pedestrians. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812124.pdf
Portal site of Official Statistics in Japan. http://www.e-stats.go.jp/
Charron, C.: Relations entre les enjeux et les comportements de traversée d’une chaussée. Etudes exploratoires chez l’enfant de 6 à 12 ans (2005)
Wu, T., Tian, R., Duffy, V.: Performing ergonomic analyses through virtual interactive design: validity and reliability assessment. Hum. Factors Ergonomics Manufact. Serv. Ind. 22(3), 256–268 (2012)
Russel, M.E.B., Hoffman, B., Stromberg, S., Carlson, C.R.: Use of controlled diaphragmatic breathing for the management of motion sickness in a virtual reality environment. Appl. Psychphysiol. Biofeedback 39, 269–277 (2014)
Zero Latency. https://www.zerolatencyvr.com
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Elijah Davis, Joshua Church, and Jeffry Herzog for their assistance in development of the Pedestrian Simulator. This research was funded by the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sween, R., Deb, S., Carruth, D.W., Waddell, D., Furuichi, M. (2017). Development of an Effective Pedestrian Simulator for Research. In: Stanton, N., Landry, S., Di Bucchianico, G., Vallicelli, A. (eds) Advances in Human Aspects of Transportation. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 484. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41682-3_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41682-3_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41681-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41682-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)