Understanding how emerging technologies impact pedestrian street-crossing behavior

There are ~1.3 million traffic-related deaths worldwide each year, with more than half of these deaths among vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. Furthermore, our road networks are rapidly changing because of the emergence and adoption of sophisticated vehicle technologies like self-driving cars and connected vehicles technology. One such technology is Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) communication, which allows vehicles to communicate their location to a pedestrian’s smartphone. This information can then be used to present traffic information to the pedestrian, but there is little research on how to present this information to pedestrians and how they would respond to this information on their personal devices (e.g., through smartphones or Augmented Reality glasses).

This thesis gives an overview of my research that explores how younger and older pedestrians respond to safety applications that present information to them using smartphones and a simulated Augmented Reality (AR) device. We use two different types of virtual reality systems (CAVE, Head-Mounted Display) to understand the impact of traffic safety interventions using smartphone alerts and warnings, AR alerts and warnings, and AR overlays on a two-way street, to guide pedestrian street-crossing behaviour.