Incorporating Bicycle Naturalistic Data to Validate Driver Simulation

Limited data is available for vulnerable roadway users such as bicyclists. The limitation of crash reports and reduced number of observations do not facilitate rigorous safety and operational analyses. Since bicycle related crashes are rare and long periods of time are required to gather representative number of observations, using bicycle related crash reports is impractical. An alternative to crash data is the use of conflicts. In the case of bicyclist safety, conflicts are considered dangerous interactions between motor vehicles and bicyclists. There are numerous roadway scenarios for interactions on rural roads. For instance, motor vehicles overtaking bicyclists on rural two-lane roadways without shoulders, where bicyclists ride on the right side of the travel lane. Thus, naturalistic data contributes to evaluate the safety impacts of rural roadway geometric configurations and operations on bicyclists which help identify variables of interest and validate simulation scenarios to analyze driver behavior. Specific and rigorous validation studies for the analysis of specific phenomena are indispensable for driving simulators to be considered reliable tools of research in geometric design. When the validation has been ascertained, driving simulators appear to be useful tools for assisting in the design of roadways. To collect bicycle naturalistic data, a bicycle will be instrumented with emerging sensing technologies to capture video, location, distance, and speed during vehicle-bicycle interactions. Naturalistic data will be collected on rural two-lane roads with different geometric and operational configurations including rural two-lane roadway segments with 40-55 mph speed limits. Based on the naturalistic data, simulation scenarios will be validated, and a driving simulation study will be conducted to evaluate vehicle-bicycle interactions based on the presence of opposing traffic, leading or following vehicle, and vehicle type.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Start Date: 20220901
• Expected Completion Date: 20240630
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic data collection systems; Cyclists; Driving simulators; Rural highways; Traffic conflicts
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01884365
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Safety Research Using Simulation University Transportation Center (SaferSim)
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: May 31 2023 7:30PM