Why do you take that route?

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a particular context factor among the variables that a researcher is interested in causally affects the route choice behavior of drivers. To our knowledge, there is limited literature that consider the effects of various factors on route choice based on causal inference.Yet, collecting data sets that are sensitive to the aforementioned factors are challenging and the existing approaches usually take into account only the general factors motivating drivers route choice behavior. To fill these gaps, we carried out a study using Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) tools to elicit drivers' route choice behavioral data, covering drivers' network familiarity, educationlevel, financial concern, etc, apart from conventional measurement variables. Having context-aware, high-fidelity properties, IVE data affords the opportunity to incorporate the impacts of human related factors into the route choice causal analysis and advance a more customizable research tool for investigating causal factors on path selection in network routing. This causal analysis provides quantitative evidence to support drivers' diversion decision.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Weighting Waiting: Evaluating the Perception of In-Vehicle Travel Time Under Moving and Stopped Conditions

This paper describes experiments comparing traditional computer administered stated preference with virtual experience stated preference to ascertain how people value stopped delay compared with stop-and- go or freeflow traffic. The virtual experience stated preference experiments were conducted using a wrap around driving simulator. The two methods produced two different results, with the traditional computer assisted stated preference suggesting that ramp delay is 1.6 Ð 1.7 times more onerous than freeway time, while the driving simulator based virtual experience stated preference suggested that freeway delay is more onerous than ramp delay. Several reasons are hypothesized to explain the differences, including recency, simultaneous versus sequential comparison, awareness of public opinion, the intensity of the stop-and-go traffic, and the fact that driving in the real-world is a goal directed activity. However without further research, which, if any, of these will eventually prove to be the reason is unclear. What is clear is that a comparison of the computer administered stated preference with virtual experience stated preference produces different results, even though both procedures strive to find the same answers in nominally identical sets of conditions. Because people experience the world subjectively, and make decisions based on those subjective experiences, future research should be aimed at better understanding the differences between these subjective methodologies.transportation, travel behavior, driving simulator, ramp meters

Holistic Approach for Authoring Immersive and Smart Environments for the Integration in Engineering Education

Die vierte industrielle Revolution und der rasante technologische Fortschritt stellen die etablierten Bildungsstrukturen und traditionellen Bildungspraktiken in Frage. Besonders in der Ingenieurausbildung erfordert das lebenslange Lernen, dass man sein Wissen und seine Fähigkeiten ständig verbessern muss, um auf dem Arbeitsmarkt wettbewerbsfähig zu sein. Es besteht die Notwendigkeit eines Paradigmenwechsels in der Bildung und Ausbildung hin zu neuen Technologien wie virtueller Realität und künstlicher Intelligenz. Die Einbeziehung dieser Technologien in ein Bildungsprogramm ist jedoch nicht so einfach wie die Investition in neue Geräte oder Software. Es müssen neue Bildungsprogramme geschaffen oder alte von Grund auf umgestaltet werden. Dabei handelt es sich um komplexe und umfangreiche Prozesse, die Entscheidungsfindung, Design und Entwicklung umfassen. Diese sind mit erheblichen Herausforderungen verbunden, die die Überwindung vieler Hindernisse erfordert. Diese Arbeit stellt eine Methodologie vor, die sich mit den Herausforderungen der Nutzung von Virtueller Realität und Künstlicher Intelligenz als Schlüsseltechnologien in der Ingenieurausbildung befasst. Die Methodologie hat zum Ziel, die Hauptakteure anzuleiten, um den Lernprozess zu verbessern, sowie neuartige und effiziente Lernerfahrungen zu ermöglichen. Da jedes Bildungsprogramm einzigartig ist, folgt die Methodik einem ganzheitlichen Ansatz, um die Erstellung maßgeschneiderter Kurse oder Ausbildungen zu unterstützen. Zu diesem Zweck werden die Wechselwirkung zwischen verschiedenen Aspekten berücksichtigt. Diese werden in den drei Ebenen - Bildung, Technologie und Management zusammengefasst. Die Methodik betont den Einfluss der Technologien auf die Unterrichtsgestaltung und die Managementprozesse. Sie liefert Methoden zur Entscheidungsfindung auf der Grundlage einer umfassenden pädagogischen, technologischen und wirtschaftlichen Analyse. Darüber hinaus unterstützt sie den Prozess der didaktischen Gestaltung durch eine umfassende Kategorisierung der Vor- und Nachteile immersiver Lernumgebungen und zeigt auf, welche ihrer Eigenschaften den Lernprozess verbessern können. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt liegt auf der systematischen Gestaltung immersiver Systeme und der effizienten Erstellung immersiver Anwendungen unter Verwendung von Methoden aus dem Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz. Es werden vier Anwendungsfälle mit verschiedenen Ausbildungsprogrammen vorgestellt, um die Methodik zu validieren. Jedes Bildungsprogramm hat seine eigenen Ziele und in Kombination decken sie die Validierung aller Ebenen der Methodik ab. Die Methodik wurde iterativ mit jedem Validierungsprojekt weiterentwickelt und verbessert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Methodik zuverlässig und auf viele Szenarien sowie auf die meisten Bildungsstufen und Bereiche übertragbar ist. Durch die Anwendung der in dieser Arbeit vorgestellten Methoden können Interessengruppen immersiven Technologien effektiv und effizient in ihre Unterrichtspraxis integrieren. Darüber hinaus können sie auf der Grundlage der vorgeschlagenen Ansätze Aufwand, Zeit und Kosten für die Planung, Entwicklung und Wartung der immersiven Systeme sparen. Die Technologie verlagert die Rolle des Lehrenden in eine Moderatorrolle. Außerdem bekommen die Lehrkräfte die Möglichkeit die Lernenden individuell zu unterstützen und sich auf deren kognitive Fähigkeiten höherer Ordnung zu konzentrieren. Als Hauptergebnis erhalten die Lernenden eine angemessene, qualitativ hochwertige und zeitgemäße Ausbildung, die sie qualifizierter, erfolgreicher und zufriedener macht

User expectations of partial driving automation capabilities and their effect on information design preferences in the vehicle

Partially automated vehicles present interface design challenges in ensuring the driver remains alert should the vehicle need to hand back control at short notice, but without exposing the driver to cognitive overload. To date, little is known about driver expectations of partial driving automation and whether this affects the information they require inside the vehicle. Twenty-five participants were presented with five partially automated driving events in a driving simulator. After each event, a semi-structured interview was conducted. The interview data was coded and analysed using grounded theory. From the results, two groupings of driver expectations were identified: High Information Preference (HIP) and Low Information Preference (LIP) drivers; between these two groups the information preferences differed. LIP drivers did not want detailed information about the vehicle presented to them, but the definition of partial automation means that this kind of information is required for safe use. Hence, the results suggest careful thought as to how information is presented to them is required in order for LIP drivers to safely using partial driving automation. Conversely, HIP drivers wanted detailed information about the system's status and driving and were found to be more willing to work with the partial automation and its current limitations. It was evident that the drivers' expectations of the partial automation capability differed, and this affected their information preferences. Hence this study suggests that HMI designers must account for these differing expectations and preferences to create a safe, usable system that works for everyone. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A Testing and Experimenting Environment for Microscopic Traffic Simulation Utilizing Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Microscopic traffic simulation (MTS) is the emulation of real-world traffic movements in a virtual environment with various traffic entities. Typically, the movements of the vehicles in MTS follow some predefined algorithms, e.g., car-following models, lane changing models, etc. Moreover, existing MTS models only provide a limited capability of two- and/or three-dimensional displays that often restrict the user’s viewpoint to a flat screen. Their downscaled scenes neither provide a realistic representation of the environment nor allow different users to simultaneously experience or interact with the simulation model from different perspectives. These limitations neither allow the traffic engineers to effectively disseminate their ideas to various stakeholders of different backgrounds nor allow the analysts to have realistic data about the vehicle or pedestrian movements. This dissertation intends to alleviate those issues by creating a framework and a prototype for a testing environment where MTS can have inputs from user-controlled vehicles and pedestrians to improve their traffic entity movement algorithms as well as have an immersive M3 (multi-mode, multi-perspective, multi-user) visualization of the simulation using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. VR environments are created using highly realistic 3D models and environments. With modern game engines and hardware available on the market, these VR applications can provide a highly realistic and immersive experience for a user. Different experiments performed by real users in this study prove that utilizing VR technology for different traffic related experiments generated much more favorable results than the traditional displays. Moreover, using AR technologies for pedestrian studies is a novel approach that allows a user to walk in the real world and the simulation world at a one-to-one scale. This capability opens a whole new avenue of user experiment possibilities. On top of that, the in-environment communication chat system will allow researchers to perform different Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) studies without ever needing to leave the simulation environment. Last but not least, the distributed nature of the framework enables users to participate from different geographic locations with their choice of display device (desktop, smartphone, VR, or AR). The prototype developed for this dissertation is readily available on a test webpage, and a user can easily download the prototype application without needing to install anything. The user also can run the remote MTS server and then connect their client application to the server

Development and assessment of a tractor driving simulator with immersive virtual reality for training to avoid occupational hazards

Tractor overturns are the leading cause of fatalities in the agricultural sector. When drivers misuse the foldable roll over protective structure (ROPS) in tractors, it becomes highly inefficient as a rollover protection system. To solve this problem, the purpose of the present paper is to detail the development and assessment of a tractor driving simulator with immersive virtual reality for training to minimize this risk. In the agricultural sector, tractor driving simulators make it possible to train drivers in risk situations that are not feasible in the real field due to the high risk of roll over. The simulator includes a motion platform for this particular application. The findings of this study suggest that participants with safety knowledge make fewer errors in deploying the ROPS. To reduce the consequences of tractor accidents in the agricultural sector, the promotion of training courses is essential to avoid the misuse of the ROPS. On the contrary, the perception of risk and safety increased after the tractor driving simulator experience for all of the participants but increased significantly more so for non-frequent users of tractors. All of the groups of participants reported that the use of the tractor driving simulator was a positive experience because it can help them to drive more safely, and they feel that they need more training programmes in occupational safety.The authors would like to thank Instituto de Seguridad y Salud Laboral de la Región de Murcia for financing the project of “New Safety Devices in Machinery.” The authors would also like to thank all of the participants for their cooperation in this study

The Promise of VR Headsets: Validation of a Virtual Reality Headset-Based Driving Simulator for Measuring Drivers’ Hazard Anticipation Performance

The objective of the current study is to evaluate the use of virtual reality (VR) headsets to measure driving performance. This is desirable because they are several orders of magnitude less expensive and, if validated, could greatly extend the powers of simulation. Out of several possible measures of performance that could be considered for evaluating VR headsets, the current study specifically examines drivers’ latent hazard anticipation behavior both because it has been linked to crashes and because it has been shown to be significantly poorer in young drivers compared to their experienced counterparts in traditional driving simulators and in open road studies. The total time middle-aged drivers spend glancing at a latent hazard and the average duration of each glance was also compared to these same times for younger drivers using a VR headset and fixed-based driving simulator. In a between-subject design, forty-eight participants were equally and randomly assigned to one out of four experimental conditions – two young driver cohorts (18 – 21 years) and two middle-aged driver cohorts (30 – 55 years) navigating either a fixed-based driving simulator or a VR-headset-based simulator. All participants navigated six unique scenarios while their eyes were continually tracked. The proportion of latent hazards anticipated by participants which constituted the primary dependent measure was found to be greater for middle-aged drivers than young drivers across both platforms. Results also indicate that the middle-aged participants glanced longer than their younger counterparts on both platforms at latent hazards, as measured by the total glance duration but had no difference when measured by the average glance duration. Moreover, the difference in the magnitude of performance between middle-aged and younger drivers was the same across the two platforms. There were also no significant differences found for the severity of simulator sickness symptoms across the two platforms. The study provides some justification for the use of virtual reality headsets as a way of understanding drivers’ hazard anticipation behavior

A game prototype for understanding the safety issues of a lifeboat launch

© 2018 The Author(s) Novel, advanced game techniques provide us with new possibilities to mimic a complicated training process, with the added benefit of enhanced safety. In this paper, we design and implement a 3D game with the support of virtual reality equipment which imitates the process of a lifeboat launch, involving both tractor manoeuvres and boat operations. It is a complex but vital process which can save lives at sea but also has many potential hazards. The primary objective of the game is to allow novices to better understand the sequence of the operations and manage the potential risks which may occur during the launch process. Additionally, the game has been promoted to the general public for educational purposes and to raise awareness of the safety issues involved. The key modules of the game are designed based on physical simulations to give the players enhanced plausible cognition and enjoyable interaction. We conducted two case studies for the two purposes of the games: one for training with volunteers without launching experience and the other for public awareness of the potential hazards with young children. The game is proven to be very promising for future professional training, and it serves the educational purpose of awareness of the safety issues for general public while being entertaining