Abstract
Introduction: Little is known about how characteristics of the environment affect pedestrians’ road crossing behavior. Method: In this work, the effect of typical urban visual clutter created by objects and elements in the road proximity (e.g., billboards) on adults and children (aged 9–13) road crossing behavior was examined in a controlled laboratory environment, utilizing virtual reality scenarios projected on a large dome screen. Results: Divided into three levels of visual load, results showed that high visual load affected children's and adults’ road crossing behavior and visual attention. The main effect on participants’ crossing decisions was seen in missed crossing opportunities. Children and adults missed more opportunities to cross the road when exposed to more cluttered road environments. An interaction with age was found in the dispersion of the visual attention measure. Children, 9–10 and 11–13 years old, had a wider spread of gazes across the scene when the environment was highly loaded—an effect not seen with adults. However, unexpectedly, no other indication of the deterring effect was found in the current study. Still, according to the results, it is reasonable to assume that busier road environments can be more hazardous to adult and child pedestrians. Practical Applications: In that context, it is important to further investigate the possible distracting effect of causal objects in the road environment on pedestrians, and especially children. This knowledge can help to create better safety guideline for children and assist urban planners in creating safer urban environments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 101-109 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Safety Research |
| Volume | 72 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported by the Israeli research fund on insurance matters affiliated with the Israel Insurance Association. Hagai Tapiro is a Post-Doctoral Research Faculty Member of the Driving and Bicycling Simulator Laboratory in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at OSU. Dr. Tapiro holds a BsC, MS and PhD degrees from the department of Industrial engineering and management, in the human factor track, from the Ben-Gurion university of the Negev, Israel. His research interest in non-motorized transportation human factors, road safety of special population (e.g., elderly, children, and vulnerable road users) and road behavior analysis in simulated environments. Tal Oron-Gilad is a full professor and the chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University. She holds a BSc and MSc degree in industrial engineering from the Technion and a PhD from Ben-Gurion University. She spent 3 years as a research associate at the Institute for Simulation and Training, the University of Central Florida, where she was part of a U.S. army multi-university research initiative. Her research interests are in human factors engineering, decision support systems and the interaction of humans with technology in daily settings particularly pedestrians and traffic safety. Yisrael Parmet is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. He holds a BA in economics and statistics and MS and PhD degrees in statistics from Tel-Aviv University. He specializes in areas of design of experiments and statistical modeling. During his studies for his master and doctorate degrees, he served as a research assistant at the statistical laboratory at the Department of Statistics and OR, Tel Aviv University, which granted him knowledge in practical data analysis. In 2007–2008, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery in the UM Miller School of Medicine.
Keywords
- Children
- Distraction
- Pedestrian
- Road crossing
- Urban environment
- Visual clutter