Get Out of The Way! Examining eHMIs in Critical Driver-Pedestrian Encounters in a Coupled Simulator

Past research suggests that displays on the exterior of the car, known as eHMIs, can be effective in helping pedestrians to make safe crossing decisions. This study examines a new application of eHMIs, namely the provision of directional information in scenarios where the pedestrian is almost hit by a car. In an experiment using a head-mounted...

Visual Attention of Pedestrians in Traffic Scenes: A Crowdsourcing Experiment

In a crowdsourced experiment, the effects of distance and type of the approaching vehicle, traffic density, and visual clutter on pedestrians’ attention distribution were explored. 966 participants viewed 107 images of diverse traffic scenes for durations between 100 and 4000 ms. Participants’ eye-gaze data were collected using the TurkEyes...

Coupled simulator for research on the interaction between pedestrians and (automated) vehicles

Driving simulators are regarded as valuable tools for human factors research on automated driving and traffic safety. However, simulators that enable the study of human-human interactions are rare. In this study, we present an open-source coupled simulator developed in Unity. The simulator supports input from head-mounted displays, motion suits,...

External Human-Machine Interfaces: Which of 729 Colors Is Best for Signaling 'Please (Do not) Cross'?

Future automated vehicles may be equipped with external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) capable of signaling to pedestrians whether or not they can cross the road. There is currently no consensus on the correct colors for eHMIs. Industry and academia have already proposed a variety of eHMI colors, including red and green, as well as colors...

Blind driving by means of the track angle error

This study is the third iteration in a series of studies aimed to develop a system that allows driving blindfolded. We used a sonification approach, where the predicted angular error of the car 2 seconds into the future was translated into spatialized beeping sounds. In a driving simulator experiment, we tested with 20 participants whether a...

Eye movements while cycling in GTA V

A common limitation in human factors research is that vehicle simulators often lack perceptual fidelity. Video games, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly realistic and may be a promising tool for simulator-based human factors research. In this work, we explored whether an off-the-shelf video game is suitable for research purposes. We...

Preparing drivers for dangerous situations: A critical reflection on continuous shared control

Shared control (also known as continuous haptic guidance or haptically active controls) has recently been introduced in car driving. With shared control, the driver receives continuous force feedback on the gas pedal or steering wheel, so that human and machine conduct the driving task simultaneously. Experiments in driving simulators have shown...

Hands-on experience of manual control in a human-machine systems engineering course

This paper presents the results of integrating hands-on experience in an engineering MSc course on human-machine systems. Students could voluntarily complete a homework assignment in which they performed manual control tasks using dedicated software. The tasks were accompanied by questions that students had to answer using the theory taught in...