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“Attention! A door could open.” - introducing awareness messages for cyclists to safely evade potential hazards

  • Numerous statistics show that cyclists are often involved in road traffic accidents, often with serious outcomes. One potential hazard of cycling, especially in cities, is “dooring”—passing parked vehicles that still have occupants inside. These occupants could open the vehicle door unexpectedly in the cyclist’s path—requiring a quick evasive response by the cyclist to avoid a collision. Dooring can be very poorly anticipated; as a possible solution, we propose in this work a system that notifies the cyclist of opening doors based on a networked intelligent transportation infrastructure. In a user study with a bicycle simulator (N = 24), we examined the effects of three user interface designs compared to a baseline (no notifications) on cycling behavior (speed and lateral position), perceived safety, and ease of use. Awareness messages (either visual message, visual message + auditory icon, or visual + voice message) were displayed on a smart bicycle helmet at different times before passing a parked, still-occupied vehicle. OurNumerous statistics show that cyclists are often involved in road traffic accidents, often with serious outcomes. One potential hazard of cycling, especially in cities, is “dooring”—passing parked vehicles that still have occupants inside. These occupants could open the vehicle door unexpectedly in the cyclist’s path—requiring a quick evasive response by the cyclist to avoid a collision. Dooring can be very poorly anticipated; as a possible solution, we propose in this work a system that notifies the cyclist of opening doors based on a networked intelligent transportation infrastructure. In a user study with a bicycle simulator (N = 24), we examined the effects of three user interface designs compared to a baseline (no notifications) on cycling behavior (speed and lateral position), perceived safety, and ease of use. Awareness messages (either visual message, visual message + auditory icon, or visual + voice message) were displayed on a smart bicycle helmet at different times before passing a parked, still-occupied vehicle. Our participants found the notifications of potential hazards very easy to understand and appealing and felt that the alerts could help them navigate traffic more safely. Those concepts that (additionally) used auditory icons or voice messages were preferred. In addition, the lateral distance increased significantly when a potentially opening door was indicated. In these situations, cyclists were able to safely pass the parked vehicle without braking. In summary, we are convinced that notification systems, such as the one presented here, are an important component for increasing road safety, especially for vulnerable road users.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Tamara von SawitzkyORCiD, Thomas GrauschopfORCiD, Andreas RienerORCiD
Language:English
Document Type:Article
Year of first Publication:2021
published in (English):Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
Publisher:MDPI
Place of publication:Basel
ISSN:2414-4088
Volume:6
Issue:1
Pages:24
Article Number:3
Review:peer-review
Open Access:ja
Version:published
Tag:accident prevention; awareness message; connected traffic; cycling; head-mounted display; lateral position; simulation; vulnerable road users
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-13079
Related Identifier:https://doi.org/10.3390/mti6010003
Supplement:https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/6/1/3/s1
Faculties / Institutes / Organizations:Fakultät Informatik
CARISSMA Institute of Automated Driving (C-IAD)
Human-Computer Interaction Group (HCIG)
Licence (German):License Logo Creative Commons BY 4.0
Release Date:2022/02/18