Transportation Research Part F-Traffic Psychology and Behaviour最新文献

The aim of this paper is to present a validity and reliability study of the translation into Spanish and adaptation to the transport planning domain of the Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction scale to assess autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction of urban commuters associated to the use of habitual travel modes, expanding past studies that only focused on a particular population of study and type of travel behavior. An explanatory analysis of the main relations found is also reported, including micro-mobility and shared travel options. To this end, data collected by an online survey during the summer of 2021 from 949 respondents who provided valid data is used. The average age of respondents was 42, and women were slightly underrepresented (40.4%). Factor structure is analyzed and a three-factor ESEM model supports the definition of the constructs. Internal consistency indices show adequate values for the three factors. No statistically significant differences of factor mean values are observed according to sex. The youngest respondents associate the highest values of satisfaction to travel modes when commuting, while the old adults score the lowest values. Active travel modes are associated to the highest values of satisfaction. On the other hand, urban bus is related to the lowest values of satisfaction. Private e-scooter and shared mobility are associated with a higher satisfaction than driving a private car. Future work and practical applications are identified.

Interaction by touching a human–machine interaction (HMI) display has gradually evolved into the mainstream mode of human-vehicle interaction. Limiting the level of driver distraction caused by HMIs is an important concern. To explore the different positions and sizes of controls based on the multi-resource demands of the driver, a driving simulator experiment was conducted. The goal was to collect behavioral and subjective workload data from drivers performing secondary tasks under various conditions. Overall, the resources required by the driver to perform secondary tasks were relatively low on the left side of the HMI display and relatively high on the right side. Specifically, the lower-left position of the HMI display required the least resources, whereas the upper-right position required the most. Consequently, the results indicate that the resource demands of the secondary task on the driver decrease as the size of the controls increases. Most drivers preferred a “compromise” control size (18 mm). To reduce the resource demand, the control size of the HMI display should be set to at least 14 mm. This study has high industrial application value, and the results provide guidance for designing in-vehicle HMI displays with improved safety and usability.

It is generally accepted that driving is safer when the rules are obeyed. Therefore, the pursuit of greater compliance with traffic rules is often seen as an intermediate goal in ensuring road safety. The article presents two studies that aim to investigate the subjective assessment of traffic rules compliance and the role of personality and behavioural factors such as anxiety, sensation seeking, driving anger, aggressive driving, and risky driving (Study 1; N=1433) on the one hand, and driving style (Study 2; N=456) on the other hand. The studies also examine the differences in traffic rules compliance by age, sex, driving experience, and negative driving outcomes such as registered violations, driving licence suspensions, and involvement traffic accidents. Self-report methods are used to assess personality factors, driving style, traffic rules compliance, and negative driving outcomes. The results show a generally positive assessment of compliance with traffic rules among the participants, with the majority reporting compliance in their daily driving behaviour. Study 1 indicates that all personality factors investigated are significant predictors of traffic rules compliance. Study 2 demonstrates that the risky style, the irrational style, the distress-reduction style, and the patient and careful style are significant predictors of traffic rule compliance. Demographic differences are also observed, with women being significantly more likely than men to perceive themselves as compliant drivers. In terms of negative driving outcomes, both studies demonstrate that individuals with a record of driving violations in the last three years, a suspended driving licence, and involvement in a traffic accident are significantly less likely to rate themselves as compliant. The results can contribute to the development of prevention programmes and road safety strategies to promote safer driving behaviour.

Driver’s perception of speed is the basis of driving safety, and installing speed limit signs at tunnel entrances is an intuitive means of controlling a driver’s driving speed. Therefore, tunnel entrance signs should be set up effectively to ensure each signage can fulfil its intended effect. Quantifying the information volume conveyed by traffic signs, discovering the impact of different information volumes on driving speeds, and understanding the effects of typical signs are the prerequisites for the effective use of signage. This study collected the speed variations of 40 drivers driving at nine mountainous highway tunnels with different entrance traffic signs through a naturalistic driving real vehicle test. The effect of low-volume intermittent information at tunnel entrances is identified in terms of the black hole effect on drivers (BHD), white hole effect on drivers (WHD), velocity fluctuation trend (VFT), and effect of speed limit signs (ELS). The study’s results confirm that the effect of speed limit signage with traffic sign information volume (TSIV) in the range of 8.904 to 33.318 bit is significant. In comparison, the sign will lose its effectiveness in guiding drivers to control their speed when TSIV is greater than 58.641 bits. Using low-volume information speed limit signs or tunnel warning signs repeated twice before entering a tunnel can alert drivers and regulate their driving speeds. The speed limit sign (sign ①) for each type of vehicle is set individually, and the combined speed limit and no lane change sign (sign ②) used in two stacks have a strong speed control effect. Moreover, the sign ②, when used alone, has the best timeliness; the effective distance of speed control can reach 1522 m; using it before short tunnels or long tunnels less than 1500 m can achieve better effectiveness.

Situational action theory (SAT) is a comprehensive theory that explains offending behaviour from the context of the interaction between interpersonal factors, such as morals, self-control, and habits, with situational factors, such as environmental risk and social conditions. Illegal hand-held mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD), a prevalent and risky road behaviour, has yet to be examined under the SAT framework. Therefore, by utilising SAT, this exploratory study sought to investigate the interpersonal and situational factors preceding hand-held MPUWD in three distinct road environments (highways, built-up areas and stopped-at-traffic lights). To achieve this, Queensland drivers aged over 18 who owned a mobile phone (N = 821, M_age = 41.7 years, SD = 20.9 years) were invited to complete an online survey. Repeated measures ANOVAs demonstrated significant mean differences for participants’ perceived risks associated with MPUWD and subsequent likelihood of offending across the three environments, with traffic lights being more conducive to MPUWD behaviours. Three hierarchical multiple linear regressions also revealed that age, attitude, risk of judgement, and self-control were significant predictors of MPUWD across all environments, while the results for gender, risk of injury and risk of being apprehended varied across the different driving contexts. Together, these factors explained 38.5–39.6 % of the variance in the perceived likelihood of illegally engaging in MPUWD. Overall, the findings indicated that the application of SAT has predictive utility in determining MPUWD engagement and can provide a more comprehensive framework for approaching and intervening in MPUWD behaviour.

This study aimed to understand the influence of surrounding vehicle configuration, driving lane, and traffic density on drivers’ situational awareness (SA), takeover performance, and eye-tracking behaviors in conditionally automated driving. An experiment was conducted with the participation of 40 university students using a fixed-base driving simulator configured to simulate SAE Level 3 automation. During the experiment, participants were engaged in playing Tetris on a tablet as a non-driving related task in automated driving mode. Upon hearing an auditory takeover request, participants were instructed to take control of the vehicle, and then complete a scene reconstruction task to report their SA after transferring control back to the automated driving system. Our findings showed that drivers often neglected vehicles at their sides and rear during the takeover, which was associated with higher collision risks. Higher oncoming traffic density led to drivers’ worse SA of surrounding vehicles but more cautious driving behavior. Driving in the right lane generally resulted in smoother takeovers with lower collision risks. Interestingly, while SA did moderate the impacts of driving conditions on safety margins, a higher level of SA did not consistently relate to improved performance, especially in complex scenarios. This suggests the need for support systems that guide drivers to focus on safety–critical objects rather than simply amplifying SA in general. These insights have significant implications for the design of driver monitoring and support systems in automated vehicles.

The development of automated vehicles (AVs) will remain in the stage of human–machine co-driving for a long time. Trust is considered as an effective foundation of the interaction between the driver and the automated driving system (ADS). Driver’s trust miscalibration, represented by under-trust and over-trust, is considered to be the potential cause of disuse and misuse of ADS, or even serious accidents. The estimation and calibration of trust are crucial to improve the safety of the driving process. This paper mainly consists of the following two aspects. Firstly, a dynamic and quantitative trust estimation model is established. A framework for trust estimation is constructed. Driver’s perceived risk and behavior features were monitored and a Kalman filter was used to dynamically and quantitatively estimate the driver’s trust. We conducted a driver-in-the-loop experiment and generated model parameters through a data-driven approach. The results demonstrated that the model exhibited precision in trust estimation, with the highest accuracy reaching 74.1%. Secondly, a reminder strategy to calibrate the over-trust of the driver is proposed based on the model from the first part. A scenario with four risky events was designed and the ADS would provide voice reminders to the driver when over-trust was detected. The results demonstrated that the reminder strategy proved to be beneficial for safety enhancement and moderate trust maintenance during the driving process. When the driver is over-trusting, the accident rates of the reminder group and the non-reminder group were 60.6% and 13.0%, respectively. Our contribution in this paper can be concluded by four points: (1) A real-time trust estimation model is proposed, which is dynamic and quantitative, considering the evolution pattern of driver’s trust and the perceived risk; (2) Mathematical modeling and machine learning methods are combined; (3) A trust-based reminder strategy that aims to enhance the safety of human–machine co-driving is designed; (4) Driver-in-loop experiment validates the effectiveness in enhancing the safety, maintaining driver’s trust and reducing trust biases in human–machine co-driving.

In this paper, the causes of frequent traffic accidents at the exits of highway tunnels are investigated. This study recruited 34 subjects to conduct vehicle experiments using an illumination meter, eye tracker, Smarter Eye and OBD to measure the illumination, eye movement characteristics, driving trajectory, and speed while driving in a tunnel exit. A questionnaire was used to investigate drivers’ subjective feelings while driving. The change trend of each indicator in the area near the tunnel exit was analyzed, and the relationships among the light environment, driver physiology, driving behavior, and driver psychology were explored. The psychological and physiological inconsistency phenomenon and abnormal acceleration behavior were observed at the tunnel exit, and the slack effect was verified. As the tunnel exit area is driven through, with the rapid increase in illumination, the rate of change of the driver’s pupil area increases, and the distance between the vehicle and the tunnel sidewall increases. It is unreasonable that in a tunnel exit with a poor traffic environment, some drivers experience psychological slack and tend to increase their speed and accelerate out of the tunnel. The slack effect is observed in most drivers, approximately 79.4% of the total. The white hole effect interferes with drivers’ vision and reduces their ability to obtain traffic information. The slack effect reduces drivers’ attention and increases vehicle speed. A coupling effect exists between the white hole and slack effects, which together threaten traffic safety at the tunnel exit.

Although several studies in the past discussed the effects of socio-demographic and trip characteristics on users’ preferences towards crossing facilities in urban areas, they were mostly confined to metro cities or million-plus cities. Adequate investigation has not been performed for the same in the small-sized cities where pedestrian activities are expected to be more frequent because of the higher share of shorter and walkable trip lengths. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the heterogeneity in the perceived importance of crossing facility attributes among different pedestrian groups based on gender, age group, and walking preference. The study was conducted in a small-sized city, Roorkee, in the state of Uttarakhand, India. A face-to-face questionnaire survey of 554 pedestrians was conducted to collect their perceived importance towards 12 crossing facility attributes under study using a 5-point Likert-type ordinal scale. Collected data was analyzed using the non-parametric tests to measure the heterogeneity in the perceived importance of crossing facility attributes among aforementioned pedestrian groups. Subsequently, the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method was used to derive relative importance scores of attributes found statistically significant in heterogeneity tests for different pedestrian groups. The findings of the present study reveal that perceived importance towards crossing facility attributes is heterogeneous based on the pedestrians’ age group and walking preferences; however, it remains unaffected by gender. These findings would help policymakers, planners, and government authorities frame improvement strategies for the existing crossing facilities in the city.

Background

Shared spaces are intended to constitute an attractive urban space for everyone by blending protected and unprotected road users. However, our previous study showed that pedestrians prefer the traditional division between protected and unprotected road users, at the same time as elderly pedestrians focused less on traffic when the division was recreated by large flowerpots.

Objective

This follow-up study aimed to examine the effects of external factors, such as alternative design and pedestrian density, on motorists’ subjective experiences, and the speed and placement of their vehicles within a shared space.

Methods

To investigate this, Q-methodology was used to examine 32 motorists’ subjective experiences, and video recordings were analysed to measure the speed and placement of 150 vehicles on Fisherman’s Square in Västervik, Sweden, both without (75 vehicles) and with (75 vehicles) large flowerpots deployed.

Results

The motorists preferred when the large flowerpots were deployed to recreate the traditional division. The results also showed that both the large flowerpots and high pedestrian density decreased vehicles’ mean maximum speed. The deployment of large flowerpots also decreased the distribution of vehicles over the square.

Conclusion

Recreating some type of division between protected and unprotected road users appears to be preferred. Further studies are required to ascertain whether this solution works for all road user groups, including cyclists and e-scooter riders.