Evaluation of augmented reality cues to improve the safety of left-turn maneuvers in a connected environment: A driving simulator study

Simulating the effect of different lighting conditions on left-turn driving behavior using a scenario-based anger method

Anger is a key factor affecting drivers' subjective judgment and driving skills. The influence of anger on driving behavior has been widely studied, but there is a lack of comparative research under different lighting conditions. Through a driving simulation experiment, this paper studies the influence of anger on left-turn driving behavior under two light conditions day and night. In the experiment, 32 licensed participants were divided into two groups, one in emotional neutrality and the other in anger. Among them, the emotional state of anger is induced by a traffic-related video. The results showed that compared with daytime participants, participants at night had higher anger intensity, shorter gap acceptance, and post encroachment time (PET) when left-turn driving. In addition, compared with neutral emotion participants, angry participants tended to accept shorter gap acceptance and PET when turning left. This indicates that participants failed to respond correctly to left-turn driving behavior in a state of anger. However, the response of gender differences to situational driving anger was not affected by light conditions. The anger intensity of male participants during the day and night was higher than that of female participants, and the gap between acceptance and PETs during left-turn was shorter than that of female participants. This shows that male participants are more likely to produce high-intensity anger and are more likely to make dangerous driving decisions in a state of anger. This paper puts forward some suggestions on identifying anger and preventing angry driving.

Road safety under the environment of intelligent connected vehicles

The emergence of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (ICVs) is expected to drastically change various fields in the transportation system-especially traffic safety of road users. Therefore, this special issue aims to facilitate a forum for transportation researchers fostering an exchange of research ideas and experience in traffic safety with a specific focus on operations, planning and management of ICVs. The issue contains thirty-six papers from seven different countries. Topics are classified into seven categories: (1) Driving behavior in the ICV environment; (2) Safety evaluation of ICVs; (3) ICV driving/management strategies; (4) New framework for ICV safety analysis; (5) ICV safety for vulnerable road users; (6) Perception towards ICVs; and (7) Security issues relating to ICVs. The papers are concisely introduced in this editorial. All the papers were invited to present at the International Symposium on Accident Analysis & Prevention in 2021 (ISAAP 2021) and the symposium was successfully held. The research conducted in these articles reveal challenges and future directions in the area of ICVs that include further developing novel methodologies and algorithms for collision-free trajectories of ICVs, testing diverse scenarios in complex environments with mixed traffic, and addressing inherent safety risks of specific vulnerable road users (e.g., older road users, bicyclists, riders of micro-mobility vehicles).

A Systematic Review of Virtual Reality Applications for Automated Driving: 2009–2020

While virtual reality (VR) interfaces have been researched extensively over the last decades, studies on their application in vehicles have only recently advanced. In this paper, we systematically review 12 years of VR research in the context of automated driving (AD), from 2009 to 2020. Due to the multitude of possibilities for studies with regard to VR technology, at present, the pool of findings is heterogeneous and non-transparent. We investigated N = 176 scientific papers of relevant journals and conferences with the goal to analyze the status quo of existing VR studies in AD, and to classify the related literature into application areas. We provide insights into the utilization of VR technology which is applicable at specific level of vehicle automation and for different users (drivers, passengers, pedestrians) and tasks. Results show that most studies focused on designing automotive experiences in VR, safety aspects, and vulnerable road users. Trust, simulator and motion sickness, and external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) also marked a significant portion of the published papers, however a wide range of different parameters was investigated by researchers. Finally, we discuss a set of open challenges, and give recommendation for future research in automated driving at the VR side of the reality-virtuality continuum.