Development of a virtual reality pedestrian street-crossing task: The examination of hazard perception and gap acceptance

Pedestrians are a particularly vulnerable road user due to their lack of protection in the event of a crash, which makes safe road-crossing imperative. Current research on pedestrian hazard perception behaviour is limited because street-crossing tasks have not been developed using established procedures. The current study aimed to apply established driver hazard perception principles to the development of a virtual-reality pedestrian street-crossing task (VR-PSCT) which assessed hazard perception and gap acceptance separately. Un-staged street-crossing scenarios (including 36 hazard perception and 41 gap acceptance clips) were filmed at average child and adult heights using 360-degree video cameras at 24 locations across Sydney and Melbourne suburbs. Using established test creation procedures, 16 hazard perception and 17 gap acceptance clips were tested with 76 participants: 32 children (M = 9.48, SD = 1.31, 75.2 % male) and 44 adults (M = 23.45, SD = 3.46, 48 % male). Analysis of performance resulted in the removal of another nine clips, resulting in a final VR-PSCT comprising 13 hazard perception and 11 gap acceptance clips. Adults responded more often within the designated hazard and gap windows, had significantly faster response times, and accurately identified hazards more often than children. This indicates that a comparison between adults and children is a useful metric for determining clip inclusion in pedestrian tasks and provides support for the VR-PSCT being an appropriate assessment of two key pedestrian street-crossing behaviours that can be used in future research on pedestrian road safety.