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Investigation of Key Automated Vehicle Human Factors Safety Issues Related to Infrastructure: Comparing Intersection Crossing Behaviors of Human Drivers and Automated Vehicles
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2025-02-01
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Edition:Final Technical Report
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Abstract:This study examined the degree to which an in-vehicle signal countdown timer influenced human drivers’ intersection approaching behaviors and decisionmaking. Secondarily, the study compared intersection approaching behaviors between human drivers and automated shuttles. The research team further simulated predicted behaviors of human drivers at lower speeds and predicted behaviors of shuttles at higher speeds. The results indicated that the presence of the signal countdown timer information regulated human drivers’ speed and acceleration within the approach zone. This finding supports the first hypothesis: Information from a signal countdown timer will increase the probability of stopping in response to the onset of the yellow signal phase. The results further suggest that safety benefits occur from providing signal phase information to drivers in realtime. Ratings from the postdrive questionnaires indicated that participants who experienced the countdown timer and participants who only read about this technology had similar response distributions on the safety, trust, usability, and traffic management items, further suggesting the perceived benefits of the technology from all participants. However, given the nature of this field study, only 1 approach (out of 55 applicable approaches) cleared the intersection when the vehicles entered the approach zone while the signal phase was green and changed to yellow during the approach. This amount of data did not allow for a thorough examination of the probability of stopping in response to the onset of the yellow signal phase. Therefore, the second hypothesis, that automated shuttles, both observed and predicted, would respond to the yellow light onset more consistently than human drivers, with and without a signal countdown timer, could not be systematically tested. A comparison between human and shuttle data indicated that human drivers tended to cross the intersection relatively more frequently compared with the shuttle at both lower and higher speeds, although the difference was not statistically significant. Overall, the findings and the analytical methods provide an insight on the feasibility of comparing behaviors at different speeds across modes of driving (human versus automated shuttle) for future studies and suggest the safety benefits of presenting signal phase information at signalized intersections in realtime.
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[PDF-1.42 MB]
