摘要: |
The motivation for this study is to measure the interaction between
pedestrians and motorists, so that the variety of expected interactions
between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles can be documented.
This knowledge is intended to better inform the programming of
driverless vehicles and to provide guidance to officials contemplating
alternatives crosswalk designs.
To seek data that would assist the experiments described above,
videos of pedestrians crossing one-way streets at specially-marked
crosswalks are being recorded to create an archive that can be
studied to detect and document the variety of behaviors by
pedestrians and motorists at semi-controlled sites. Here, �semicontrolled�
means sites marked with �State Law Yield to Pedestrian
Within Crosswalk� signs. [MUTCD Figure 2B-2. Unsignalized
Pedestrian Crosswalk Signs]. The timing of this study is quite good,
because the one-way streets being videoed will soon become twoway
streets, as part of a redesign of streets at Purdue�s campus. This
will permit the study of the same pedestrian population at the same
location under modified circumstances.
Based on a preliminary viewing of the videos made to date, a list of
metrics is being developed. The current categories are: General
environment, Pedestrian behavior, Motorist behavior, and PedestrianMotorist
interaction.
The outcomes are likely to confirm that pedestrian and motorist
behaviors in the street-crossing context are highly variable. For
purposes of assessing the interaction between pedestrians and
autonomous vehicles, a fresh look at the degree of variability � and
the metrics used to measure the behaviors � will add to a knowledge
crucial to autonomous vehicle (AV) operations in urban settings. While detailed information
will be needed for AV applications, more aggregate metrics may be sufficient to guide traffic engineers as they consider alternative
designs of street networks (one-way or two-way streets?) and
pedestrian facilities. Examples of aggregate metrics are average
delay to pedestrians and motorists, and relative frequency of conflicts
between motorists and pedestrians. |