Benefits of Redundant Visual In-Vehicle Information in Pedestrian–Vehicle Conflict Scenarios

Abstract

The paper provides information relevant to the development of driver and pedestrian safety systems by examining drivers’ responses to infrastructure-based safety messages (DII) with a redundant in-vehicle display component. A driving simulator was used to create a conflict situation which required an immediate driver response to avoid a collision. At the start of the event, a pedestrian was occluded by a truck at an intersection. Partway through the event, the pedestrian dashed into the road and into the driver’s path. When redundant visual in-vehicle alerting messages were provided, drivers released the throttle more quickly, engaged the brake more quickly, and had longer minimum time to collision relative to the baseline condition which lacked visual alerts. This was an improvement over the DII-only condition, where drivers did not brake more quickly relative to baseline and had only marginally longer minimum time to collision compared with the baseline condition. The findings suggest that redundant in-vehicle message information provides a benefit to many drivers over systems that use only infrastructure-based safety systems in vehicle–pedestrian conflicts.