Pedestrian gap acceptance for mid-block street crossing

Abstract

This paper investigates pedestrians' traffic gap acceptance for mid-block street crossing in urban areas. A field survey was carried out at an uncontrolled mid-block location in Athens, Greece. Pedestrians' decisions and traffic conditions were videotaped in terms of the size of traffic gaps rejected or accepted, waiting times and crossing attempts and vehicle speeds. A lognormal regression model was developed to examine pedestrian gap acceptance. It was found that gap acceptance was better explained by the distance from the incoming vehicle, rather than its speed. Other significant effects included illegal parking, presence of other pedestrians and incoming vehicles’ size. A binary logistic regression model was developed to examine the effect of traffic gaps and other parameters on pedestrians' decisions to cross the street or not. The results reveal that this decision is affected by the distance from the incoming vehicles and the waiting times of pedestrians.     

An empirical investigation on consumers’ intentions towards autonomous driving

Major steps towards implementation of autonomous and connected transport are being taken nowadays. The trend of automation technology being used in vehicles by the most important vehicle manufacturing industries is expected to move closer to high or fully Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) through technological advancements in sectors of robotics and artificial intelligence. Vehicles with autonomous driving capabilities are planning to be available on market, in full scale, in the next years. In the longer term substantial benefits are mainly expected for accessibility to transport, safety, traffic flow, emissions, fuel use and comfort. All these potential societal benefits will not be achieved unless AVs are accepted and used by a critical mass of people. Addressing these challenges, this paper: (a) proposes a technology acceptance modelling process by extending the original Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explain and predict consumers’ intensions towards AVs, (b) based on the proposed TAM-extended framework, a 30-question survey was conducted in order to investigate the factors influencing consumers’ intensions to use and accept AVs. Results show that the constructs of perceived usefulness, perceived ease to use, perceived trust and social influence, are all useful predictors of behavioral intentions to have or use AVs, with perceived usefulness having the strongest impact. The insights derived from this study could significantly contribute to ongoing research related to technology acceptance of AVs and are expected to allow automobile industries to improve their design and technology.     

Connectivity’s impact on mandatory lane-changing behaviour: Evidences from a driving simulator study

The connected environment provides driving aids to help drivers making efficient and safe driving decisions. The literature to date is devoid of conclusive evidences of the connected environment’s impact on drivers’ mandatory lane-changing (MLC) behaviour. As such, the objective of this study is to examine MLC behaviour through a driving simulator experiment using the CARRS-Q Advanced Driving Simulator. Participants with diverse background performed the experiment in randomised driving conditions: baseline (without the driving aids), connected environment with perfect communication, and connected environment with communication delay. Repeated measure ANOVA in the form of linear mixed model and Generalized Estimation Equation (GEE) are employed to analyse various driving performance indicators during MLC event. We find that drivers in the connected environment tend to wait longer, increase the initial speed, and maintain a larger spacing, compared to when they are driving in the baseline condition. In addition, drivers in the connected environment are likely to reject fewer number of gaps and select relatively bigger gap sizes. Furthermore, post-encroachment time (PET) in the connected environment is higher across different gap sizes, indicating that the connected environment makes MLC safer. The GEE model on gap acceptance suggests that the perfect communication and communication delay has positive and negative impact on the accepted gap size, respectively, and the GEE model on lane-change duration indicates that lane-change duration tends to increase in the connected environment.     

What drives people to accept automated vehicles? Findings from a field experiment

This field study aims at understanding the influence of direct experience of an automated vehicle (AV, Level 3) and explaining and predicting public acceptance of AVs through a psychological model. The model includes behavioral intention (BI) to use self-driving vehicles (SDVs, Level 5), willingness to re-ride (WTR) in our AV (Level 3), and their four potential determinants, namely perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), trust related to SDVs, and perceived safety (PS) while riding in our AV. The last two determinants are largely ignored, but we consider them critical in the context of AVs. Three-hundred students were invited as participants (passengers) to experience the AV. The trust, PU, PEU, and BI of the participants were recorded prior to their experiencing the AV; after this experience, all the constructs of the psychological model were recorded. The participants’ experience with the AV was found to increase their trust, PU and PEU (but not BI), the consistency between PU/PEU and BI, and the explanatory power of BI. The model explained 55% of the variance in BI and 40% in WTR. PU, trust, and PS were found to be steady and direct predictors of both the acceptance measures; PEU predicted BI only after the participants’ AV experience. Mediation analysis showed that trust also can indirectly affect AV acceptance through other determinants. Out-of-sample prediction confirmed the model’s predictive capability for AV acceptance. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

沈从文论鲁迅:在疏离与接受之间

在鲁迅逝世前，沈从文就多有论及鲁迅的文字，从这些文字中，可以发现沈从文对于鲁迅在认识与评价上的复杂性。沈从文从文学本体论出发，一方面肯定鲁迅在小说创作上的重要成就及其影响，对作为文学家的鲁迅持认同态度，另一方面又否定鲁迅的杂文创作及其社会政治意义，对作为思想家与战士的鲁迅表现出拒斥的态度。这就使得这一时期沈从文对于鲁迅的认识与评价居于疏离与接受之间，表现出一种复杂难解的矛盾态度。     

给水集中监控系统建设标准的剖析

根据《铁路给水集中监控系统技术管理标准》产生的历史背景 ,阐述贯彻监控标准的目的 ,明确落实监控标准的目标 ,对如何把握监控标准的主要环节、合理确立监控方案进行论证分析 ,把好监控系统质量验收关     

等效间隙元在钢拱架施工中的应用

根据剩余荷载增量的迭代演算法求解受正弦荷载作用的有间隙连接杆件,并用温度力等效间隙对比计算,二者结果一致,再根据桑坝大桥拱架模型,用两种方法对比计算,二者结果也一致,证明了用温度力等效计算间隙元的正确性和实用性。     

海南洋浦港二期工程基床爆夯效果分析

对抛石厚度超过12m的基床爆夯处理的参数选择,爆破产生地震波对周围建筑物的影响以及爆夯密实效果等问题进行分析,对“爆炸法处理水下地基和基础技术规程”中有关基床爆夯的验收标准作进一步探讨。