Work Zone Safety: Behavioral Analysis with Integration of VR and Hardware in the Loop

Despite increased regulations, restrictive measures, and devices used for warnings, work zone injuries and fatalities are still observed at highway construction projects with alarms/notifications being ignored. With a vision to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities, Phase 2 of the research team's worker safety project extends the original scope and adds a Hardware in the Loop (HIL) component to simulate real traffic scenarios through simultaneous interactions with variety of vehicles and deployed sensor data in immersive virtual environments. The project aims to understand the key parameters (e.g., work zone location characteristics, personal vigilance levels, duration of construction work) that play roles in behaviors of workers in response to notifications received from various warning mechanisms (e.g., sound, vibration). Key questions this research answers are, at what conditions workers ignore/response to warnings at work zones? How we can calibrate notification systems for getting responsive actions from workers? What are the modalities, frequencies, and timings of pushing notifications in these calibrated systems? Through wearable sensors and hardware integrated realistic representations of work zones in virtual reality, the team plans to collect worker behavioral and physiological (heart rate) responses to alarms/warnings/notifications issued under various realistic scenarios and modalities of warning mechanisms (e.g., sensory, visual, audial) and analyze these captured data towards understanding human behaviors in response to modalities of notifications.

• Record URL:
  https://c2smarter.engineering.nyu.edu/work-zone-safety-behavioral-analysis-with-integration-of-vr-and-hardware-in-the-loop/

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $110486
• Contract Numbers:

  USDOT 69A3551747124

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)

  New York University
  Tandon School of Engineering
  Brooklyn, NY  United States 
• Performing Organizations:

  Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)

  New York University
  Tandon School of Engineering
  Brooklyn, NY  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Ergan, Semiha

• Start Date: 20200301
• Expected Completion Date: 20210228
• Actual Completion Date: 20210228
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
• Source Data: http://c2smart.engineering.nyu.edu/2020/03/25/behavioral-analysis-with-integration-of-vr/

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Hardware in the loop simulation; Heart rate; Road construction workers; Sensors; Traffic simulation; Virtual reality; Warning signals; Work zone safety
• Subject Areas: Construction; Data and Information Technology; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01737123
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)
• Contract Numbers: USDOT 69A3551747124
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Apr 23 2020 8:18AM