Analysis of distracted pedestrians’ waiting times: Head-mounted immersive virtual reality application

Abstract

This paper analyzes the distracted pedestrians' waiting time before crossing the road in three conditions: 1) not distracted, 2) distracted with a smartphone and 3) distracted with a smartphone in the presence of virtual flashing LED lights on the crosswalk as a safety measure. For the means of data collection, we adapted an in-house developed virtual immersive reality environment (VIRE). A total of 42 volunteers participated in the experiment. Participants' positions and head movements were recorded and used to calculate walking speeds, acceleration and deceleration rates, surrogate safety measures, time spent playing smartphone game, etc. After a descriptive analysis on the data, the effects of these variables on pedestrians' waiting time are analyzed by employing a cox proportional hazard model. Several factors were identified as having impact on waiting time. The results show that an increase in initial walk speed, percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during crossing, bigger minimum missed gaps and unsafe crossings resulted in shorter waiting times. On the other hand, an increase in the percentage of time the head was oriented toward smartphone during waiting time, crossing time and maze solving time, means longer waiting times for participants.