Can Driving Simulators Contribute to Solving Critical Issues in Geometric Design? (original) (raw)
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Driving simulator for evaluating the effects of road geometric design on driver behavior
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Safety
The traditional approach adopted towards road safety is the analysis of risk factors that contribute to frequency or severity of traffic crashes. Many distinct elements play a role, simultaneously, in a crash occurrence, and, undoubtedly, geometric design of highways and its effect on human behavior are part of that equation. A valuable tool to investigate this interaction is the driving simulator. Nevertheless, experiment design, participants’ features, and data acquisition are detrimental factors for the effective use of this tool. This systematic review protocol is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) Statement and presents a method to find evidence on driving simulator studies of road geometry effects on drivers´ behavior.
Improving geometric road design through a virtual reality visualization technique
TRANSPORTES
Traffic accidents could often be avoided with more in-depth studies of traffic and the geometric layout, using, for example, driving simulators to simulate traffic conditions. The objective of this study is to qualitatively evaluate three types of visualization techniques for examining a road project (one in a 2D printed project and the others using a driving simulator in a virtual immersion system and screen visualization). The results were evaluated by the Analytic Hierarchy Process-AHP method, used to establish different weights for the analyzed variables. For this, a questionnaire was applied to undergraduate students in Civil Engineering to compare the techniques. The results show that the immersive simulation visualization has sufficient quality and can contribute to the validation of geometric designs.
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction, 2011
Driving is the result of a psychological process that translates data, signals and direct/indirect messages into behavior, which is continuously adapted to the exchange of varying stimuli between man, environment and vehicle. These stimuli are at times not perceived and at others perceived but not understood by the driver, even if they derive from tools (vertical signs, horizontal marking) specifically conceived for his safety. The result is unsafe behavior of vehicle drivers. For this reason, the road environment needs to be radically redesigned. The paper describes a research, based on real and virtual environment surveys, aimed to better understand drivers' action-reaction mechanisms inside different scenarios, in order to gain informations useful for a correct organization (design) of the road space. The driving simulator can help in developing, from road to laboratory, the study of new road design tools (geometrical, compositional, constructive ones, street furniture, etc.)...
Design and development of driving simulator scenarios for road validation studies
Libro de Actas CIT2016. XII Congreso de Ingeniería del Transporte, 2016
In recent years, the number of road-based studies using driving simulators is growing significantly. This allows evaluating controlled situations that otherwise would require disproportionate observations in time and/or cost. The Institute of Design and Manufacturing (IDF) of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) has developed, in collaboration with the Engineering Research Group Highway (GIIC) of the UPV, a low cost simulator that allows rapid implementation and effectively a new methodology for validation studies of different roads through the implementation in the simulator scenarios of existing roads. This methodology allows the development of new scenarios based on the analysis of a layers-file system. Each layer includes different information from the road, such as mapping, geometry, signaling, aerial photos, etc. The creation of the simulated scenario is very fast based on the geometric design software, making it easier to consulting firms using the system that can evaluate and audit a particular route, obtaining reliable conclusions at minimal cost, even if the road is not actually built. This paper describes the basic structure of the layers generated for developing scenarios and guidelines for the implementation thereof. Finally the application of this methodology to a case of success will be described.
3rd International Symposium on Highway Geometric Design, Chicago (USA). , 2005
In general the relationships among geometric design, speed, driving dynamics and safety can be regarded today to a large extent as soundly solved, while the human being (the driver), if at all, is only indirectly considered, although more than 90% of all accident causes are attributed to human error or improper human behavior. To find out to what extent driver performance as part of the road traffic system is regarded as essential for effective road design, operation, and safety, twelve modern highway geometric design guidelines were studied. The results of the in-depth reviews are discussed, analyzed, compared and evaluated. It was found that most of the guidelines only regard directly or indirectly human behavioral modes by simple assessments, for example, about perception and reaction time, eye and obstacle height, recommendations for limiting values of design elements, fatigue considerations for tangents, qualitative advice for three-dimensional alignment and sight distance quan...
Matching Simulator Characteristics to Highway Design Problems
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2011
Driving simulators hold much promise for addressing roadway design issues. However, although simulators have demonstrated their value in experimental research addressing driver performance, their ability to support road design projects has not been as clearly established. This paper describes a design-centered framework to make simulators valuable for traffic engineers and geometric designers. This framework includes several steps: (a) identification of design issues that would benefit from driving simulators, (b) identification of simulator characteristics to match them to design issues, and (c) translation of driver performance data from the simulator to traffic behavior on the road. Several critical obstacles inhibit application of simulators to highway design. First, driving safety researchers and engineers comprise separate communities and their perspectives on how simulators can be applied to address road design issues often diverge. This paper seeks to reduce this divergence and make simulators useful to highway engineers. Interviews with engineers revealed important issues that simulators could address, such as intersection and interchange design. Second, driving simulators are often broadly defined as high fidelity, which provides little value in matching simulators to design issues. A survey of simulators and simulator characteristics clarifies the meaning of simulator fidelity and links it to road design issues. Third, simulators often produce data that do not correspond to data collected by traffic engineers. This mismatch can result from inadequate simulator fidelity, but can also arise from more fundamental sources-traffic engineers focus on traffic behavior and driving simulator researchers focus on driver behavior. Obstacles in using simulators for highway design reflect both technical and communication challenges.
Valle®: A Highway Design System in a Virtual Reality Environment
Approximately 3 years ago, the Spanish company DRAGADOS undertook the creation of a Highway Design program completely integrated in a Virtual Reality environment. Throughout the first months of the year 2006, the version 1.0 of VALLE ® (Virtual roAd modeLLEr) is being implanted in the Company. DRAGADOS' intention was to merge in VALLE ® the technical and interactive capacities of a Civil Engineering Computer Aided Design application (like InRoads, Civil 3D, etc.) with the graphic and realistic capacities of Virtual Representation software (such as Virtual Map, RDV or similar) so that the user could directly test modifications of horizontal alignments, profiles, sections or other elements in an interactive and realistic way. The ability of editing the road layout in a realistic representation of the environment makes VALLE ® a valuable aid in the decision making process related to highway design.
Driving simulator: an innovative tool to test new road infrastructures
Driving simulators are high-tech and cost-effective tools that allow performing complex tasks such as designing, testing and studying road design and equipment, e.g., road markings and signs, public lighting, specific traffic lanes. For this, IFSTTAR (The French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks) has developed various types of simulatorsstatic and dynamic car driving simulators, dynamic motorcycle riding simulators, a pedestrian crossing simulatorand is working on a bicycle simulator. As for any methodological tool, driving simulators must be handled in appropriate conditions. This article presents the pros and cons of this type of device based on IFSTTAR's experience of using simulators. The notion of validation of these tools is also tackled.
Driving Simulation For Road Safety Studies
The paper examines the outstanding potential of an innovative and useful technique, the utilization of driving-simulation systems, for road safety studies. The results of the studies carried out using the CRISS (Inter-University Research Center for Road Safety) advanced interactive fixed-base driving simulator have been reported. These studies were effectuated in order to: verify the CRISS driving simulator's usefulness at a tool for speed research on two-lane rural roads; as well as to evaluate the extent to which cross-sections affects driver speeds. The study's results demonstrate that: a) the CRISS fixed-base driving simulator affords us a reliable tool for the speed analysis of two-lane rural roads with alignment configurations that do not induce drivers to adopt high speeds; b) the width reduction of the cross-section brings about a decrease in speeds, but fails to alter the way in which the driver modifies his speeds as regards the different geometrical elements of the alignment. The results confirm that interactive driving-simulation offers us quite promising perspectives for road safety design.
The overall objective of the research conducted at Carleton University was to update the current geometric guidelines to accommodate the driver behaviour in a quantitative manner. This was accomplished through focusing on the road user as a main element in highway design in order to create a consistent geometric design. To realize this objective, an experiment was designed to collect driver behaviour data using a test vehicle equipped with various instruments. Thirty volunteers were recruited to drive the test vehicle on a test route. The driver behaviour data collected included vehicle path, steering angle, speed, and lateral and longitudinal accelerations on different road classifications. These data along with the geometric alignment of the highways traversed in the experiment formed a huge database. This database was used to evaluate driver behaviour and analyse the interaction between it and geometric design and safety. This research has provided significant recommendations to the design guidelines for updating the design of horizontal curves and evaluation of design consistency. Examples of the aspects of horizontal curve design covered in this research include determining desirable lengths of spiral curves, driver comfort thresholds on horizontal curves, and recommended values for deceleration and acceleration rates at the entrance and exits of the curve. This paper summarizes the data collection methodology and presents the main contributions of this research.