Technical Analysis and Improvement of the Pedestrian Safety Protection of a Car Hood

The pedestrian protection technology must be used in automotive design if China-made automotives want to compete and grow strong in the world in the future. In this paper, a CAE simulation analysis is made for a domestic sedan car hood to check whether it meet the pedestrian safety protection laws and regulations. Results show that the original car cannot meet the demands of the rules. In order to meet the standards of the pedustrian protection rules, the car hood should undergo structural improvements. Tested again by CAE simulation analysis, the car after a series of improved design can reached the 3-star class EuroNCAP（ Euro New Car Assessment Program）standard of the car pedestrian safety protection laws and regulations.

Measuring Pedestrian Stress Response (MPSR) Using Wearable Technologies

Walkability is an essential aspect of urban transportation systems. Properly designed walking paths can enhance transportation safety, encourage pedestrian activity, and improve community quality of life. This, in turn, can help achieve sustainable development goals in urban areas. This pilot study uses wearable technology data to present a new method for measuring pedestrian stress in urban environments and the results were presented as an interactive geographic information system map to support risk-informed decision-making. The approach involves analyzing data from wearable devices using heart rate variability (RMSSD and slope analysis) to identify high-stress locations. This data-driven approach can help urban planners and safety experts identify and address pedestrian stressors, ultimately creating safer, more walkable cities. The study addresses a significant challenge in pedestrian safety by providing insights into factors and locations that trigger stress in pedestrians. During the pilot study, high-stress pedestrian experiences were identified due to issues like pedestrian-scooter interaction on pedestrian paths, pedestrian behavior around high foot traffic areas, and poor visibility at pedestrian crossings due to inadequate lighting.

A Workable Solution for Reducing the Large Number of Vehicle and Pedestrian Accidents Occurring on a Yellow Light

Traffic intersections are incredibly dangerous for drivers and pedestrians. Statistics from both Canada and the U.S. show a high number of fatalities and serious injuries related to crashes at intersections. In Canada, during 2019, the National Collision Database shows that 28% of traffic fatalities and 42% of serious injuries occurred at intersections. Likewise, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) found that about 40% of the estimated 5,811,000 accidents in the U.S. during the year studied were intersection-related crashes. In fact, a major survey by the car insurance industry found that nearly 85% of drivers could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a yellow traffic light at an intersection. One major reason for these accidents is the “yellow light dilemma,” the ambiguous situation where a driver should stop or proceed forward when unexpectedly faced with a yellow light. This situation is even further exacerbated by the tendency of aggressive drivers to inappropriately speed up on the yellow just to get through the traffic light. A survey of Canadian drivers conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation found that 9% of drivers admitted to speeding up to get through a traffic light. Another reason for these accidents is the increased danger of making a left-hand turn on yellow. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA), left turns occur in approximately 22.2% of collisions—as opposed to just 1.2% for right turns. Moreover, a study by CNN found left turns are three times as likely to kill pedestrians than right turns. The reason left turns are so much more likely to cause an accident is because they take a driver against traffic and in the path of oncoming cars. Additionally, most of these left turns occur at the driver’s discretion—as opposed to the distressingly brief left-hand arrow at busy intersections. Drive Safe Now proposes a workable solution for reducing the number of accidents occurring during a yellow light at intersections. We believe this fairly simple solution will save lives, prevent injuries, reduce damage to public and private property, and decrease insurance costs.

Design and evaluation of V2X communication system for vehicle and pedestrian safety

As the vehicles gain the extensive popularity and increasing demand, traffic accident is one of the most serious problems faced by modem transportation system. Hereinto, crashes between cars and pedestrians cause plenty of injuries and even death. Diverting attention from walking to smartphones is one of the main reasons for pedestrians getting injured by vehicles. However, the traditional measures protecting pedestrians from the vehicles heavily rely on the sound warning method, which do not capable for pedestrians focusing on the smartphones. As the smartphones become ubiquitous and intelligent, they have the capacity to provide alert for the pedestrians with the help of vehicle-to-pedestrian （V2P） communication. In this paper, an efficient vehicle-to-X （V2X） communication system is designed for the vehicle and pedestrian communication to guarantee the safety of people. It achieves the IEEE 802.11p and the WiFi protocols meanwhile on the on-board unit （OBU） designed for vehicles. Extensive evaluation shows that the OBU can provide the reliable communication for vehicle-to-vehicle （V2V） and V2P in terms of packet delivery rate and average delay. Furthermore, two safety applications have been developed to protect the safety of vehicles and pedestrians based on the data transferred from the OBU. The first application is designed to show the driving information and provide the collision forewaming alert on the tablet within the vehicle. The second application is developed for the smartphone to provide forewarning alert information to the smartphone-distracted vulnerable pedestrians. Smartphone states are appreciable to provide the adaptive alert modes. Experimental results show that these applications are capable of alerting the intersection accidents, and the pedestrians can get the adaptive alerts according to smartphone usage contexts.

A Human Active Lower Limb Model for Chinese Pedestrian Safety Evaluation

A subsystem impactor test for pedestrian lower limb injury evaluation has been brought in China New Car Assessment Protocol(CNCAP).Concerning large anthropometric differences of the people from different countries,the present study aims to establish and validate a finite element lower limb model representing 50th Chinese male size for pedestrian safety research,then compare its biomechanical responses with the general models currently in wide use in the world for pedestrian safety evaluation.Concerning the vehicle-pedestrian impact loading environment,the previously developed lower limb model with three-dimensional muscles was adjusted and validated through the related experiments.Then,the biomechanical responses of the validated model were compared with the Total Human Model for Safety(THUMS)and Advanced Pedestrian Legform Impactor(aPLI)models by combing with four typical vehicles.The results showed that both consistency and significant differences of biomechanical responses existed between the present model and the other two models.The injury measurements of the thigh region of the present model showed extremely large differences with the other two models,while the tibia and Medial Collateral Ligament(MCL)injury measurements show similar values.Thus,it can be concluded that directly using the aPLI or THUMS models for Chinese pedestrian safety evaluation is not robust concerning both kinematic responses and injury measurements.

Safety Performance Functions for Traffic Signals:Phasing and Geometry

A significant proportion of urban crashes,especially serious and fatal crashes,occur at traffic signals.Many of the black-spots in both Australia and New Zealand cities occur at high volume and/or high-speed traffic signals.Given this,crash reduction studies often focus on the major signalised intersections.However,there is limited information that links the phasing configuration,degree of saturation and overall cycle time to crashes.While a number of analysis tools are available for assessing the efficiency of intersections,there are very few tools that can assist engineers in assessing the safety effects of intersection upgrades and new intersections.Safety performance functions have been developed to help quantify the safety impact of various traffic signal phasing configurations and level of intersection congestion at low and high-speed traffic signals in New Zealand and Australia.Data from 238 signalised intersection sites in Auckland,Wellington,Christchurch,Hamilton,Dunedin and Melbourne was used to develop crash prediction models for key crash-causing movements at traffic signals.Different variables(road features)effect each crash type.The models indicate that the safety of intersections can be improved by longer cycle times and longer lost inter-green times,especially all-red time,using fully protected right turns and by extending the length of right turn bays.The exception is at intersections with lots of pedestrians where shorter cycle times are preferred as pedestrian crashes increase with longer wait times.A number of factors have a negative impact on safety including,free left turns,more approach lanes,intersection arms operating near or over capacity in peak periods and higher speed limits.

Evaluation of Transverse Markings as a Speed Transition Zone Countermeasures in Small, Rural Communities

Small rural communities located along major state or county roadways typically find most of the traffic along their main thoroughfares is pass-through rather than local traffic. Unfortunately, drivers passing through these communities often enter at high rates of speeds, which are often significantly higher than the speed limit of the local segment. Speed management in rural areas requires different considerations compared to urban areas and, within the US, rural speed management is not as advanced with little experience or guidance for agencies to draw on. This paper summarizes the results of a study that evaluated, in part, several different types of transverse pavement markings within the speed transition zones in small rural communities. Three different countermeasures were evaluated: converging chevrons, transverse lane markings, and optical speed bars.

Long-Term Effectiveness of Radar Speed Display Signs in a University Environment

Vehicular speeds are of particular interest in areas with a high number of pedestrians due to the fact that 14-percent of all fatal crashes involve pedestrians. This study investigated the effect of a radar speed display sign placed for an extended period of time, at a location frequented by law enforcement on a road segment entering a university campus with a high number of pedestrians and vehicle speed violations. The statistical analysis included a comparison between AM peak, PM peak, and midday speeds collected one year apart. The data suggested that radar speed display signs can remain effective over a long period of time;causing drivers to decelerate when warned of a speeding violation. While other studies have examined long-term impacts of similar technologies, none have included a road entering a University campus. Thus, these findings support that other similar locations entering university campuses could see long-term benefits to stationary radar speed display signs.

Using multi-agent simulation to predict natural crossing points for pedestrians and choose locations for mid-block crosswalks

When arranging the pedestrian infrastructure,one of the most important components that make a tangible contribution to the safety of pedestrians is to organize the safe road crossing.In cities,pedestrians often cross a road in the wrong place due to established routes or inadequate location of crosswalks.Accidents with the participation of pedestrians who crossed the road neglecting the traffic rules,make up a significant part of the total amount of road accidents.In this paper,we propose a method that allows us,on the basis of the results of a computer simulation of pedestrian traffic,to obtain predicted routes for road crossing and to indicate optimal locations for crosswalks that take into account established pedestrian routes and increase their safety.The work describes an extension for the existing AntRoadPlanner simulation algorithm,which searches for and clusters points where pedestrians cross the roadway and suggests locations for new crosswalks.This method was tested on the basis of a comparative simulation of several territories before and after its application,as well as on the basis of a field study of the territories.The developed algorithm can also be used to search for other potentially dangerous places for pedestrians on plans of districts,for example,crossings in places with limited visibility.

A Computer Graphics-Based Framework for 3D Pose Estimation of Pedestrians

In pedestrian-to-vehicle collision accidents,adapting safety measures ahead of time based on actual pose of pedestrians is one of the core objectives for integrated safety.It can significantly enhance the performance of passive safety system when active safety maneuvers fail to avoid accidents.This study proposes a deep learning model to estimate 3D pose of pedestrians from images.Since conventional pedestrian image datasets do not have available pose features to work with,a computer graphics-based(CG)framework is established to train the system with synthetic images.Biofidelic 3D meshes of standing males are first transformed into several walking poses,and then rendered as images from multiple view angles.Subsequently,a matrix of 50 anthropometries,10 gaits and 12 views is built,in total of 6000 images.A two-branch convolutional neural network(CNN)was trained on the synthetic dataset.The model can simultaneously predict 16 joint landmarks and 14 joint angles of pedestrian for each image with high accuracy.Mean errors of the predictions are 0.54 pixels and−0.06°,respectively.Any specific pose can then be completely reconstructed from the outputs.Overall,the current study has established a CG-based pipeline to generate photorealistic images with desired features for the training;it demonstrates the feasibility of leveraging CNN to estimate the pose of a walking pedestrian from synthesized images.The proposed framework provides a starting point for vehicles to infer pedestrian poses and then adapt protection measures accordingly for imminent impact to minimize pedestrian injuries.

Study of pedestrian hybrid beacon's effectiveness for motorists at midblock pedestrian crossings

Pedestrian signals, particularly at signalized, midblock crossings, delay drivers, which is termed ＂unnecessary delay＂ in this study. A pedestrian hybrid beacon was proven to be effective in decreasing this unnecessary delay to the drivers at midblock pedestrian crossings when compared to standard signalized midblock crossings. Two pedestrian hybrid beacons were installed at midblock pedestrian crossings in Lawrence, Kansas. A study was conducted at these two locations to determine the effectiveness of the pedestrian hybrid beacon in decreasing the unnecessary delay to drivers by comparing them with a signalized midblock on Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas. In addition to the delay measurements for drivers at pedestrian hybrid beacon and signalized treatment at midblock pedestrian crossings, other parameters such as driver compliance rate, pedestrian compliance rate, and other driver and pedestrian characteristics were also studied. Video cameras were used at these test locations and the effectiveness of the pedestrian hybrid beacon was analyzed from the video. A more than 90% reduction in delays was observed for the drivers at the pedestrian hybrid beacon at midblock crossings compared to the signalized crossing. Further, a better driver compliance rate was also recorded at the pedestrian hybrid beacon. Information about reductions in unnecessary delay to drivers and improvements to driver and pedestrian compliance rates from the use of pedestrian hybrid beacons would be useful to engineers, decision makers, and researchers to determine an optimum treatment at desired pedestrian crossings.

Pedestrian risk analysis at uncontrolled midblock and unsignalised intersections

Transportation is defined as port to port transfer of person or goods by a medium which can be a vehicle or a person. Pedestrians being the most neglected mode of transportation in terms of safety and facility, face difficult situations while crossing near intersections and midblock crossings. It becomes more of a risk when the place of crossing is uncontrolled.But if behaviour of pedestrians while crossing is analysed in such conditions, it might be possible to create suitable solution to lessen the risk and ensure safety. In most of the cities, accepting suitable gaps between vehicles in uncontrolled midblock and intersection crossings pose threat to pedestrians＇ safety. The present study examines the safety of pedestrian crossing behaviour at midblock and unsignalised intersection crossings.Crossing time, speed, stages of crossing, number of interruptions while crossing, and the type of vehicles for which pedestrians accept the gap were extracted from the video. The tendency to show rolling gap behavior was observed and examined for different age and gender groups to analyse the risk involved in such type of crossings. The risks analysed from the study in correlation with the pedestrian demand in such uncontrolled crossings will help in design of safer pedestrian facilities. It was observed that the size of the vehicle has a significant influence on gap acceptance and crossing behaviour of pedestrians. Male pedestrians take more risks than female pedestrians in crossing unsignalized intersections. Middle aged pedestrian category poses 60.1% more chances of interrupted crossing than the other elder and young age categories of pedestrians. Male pedestrian category and the middle aged pedestrian category are more tended to accept the smallest gap between the vehicles showing a risky nature of crossing.

The role of crosswalk-related features on drivers' spatial yielding compliance at signalized midblock crosswalks

The drivers’yielding distance to pedestrians at midblock crosswalks affects pedestrians’perceived safety.This distance can be influenced by either crosswalk-related or noncrosswalk.In most cases,crosswalk-related features are readily available or easy to collect compared to non-crosswalk features.However,the extent to which crosswalk-related features affect the spatial yielding compliance is not clear.This study evaluated the role of combined crosswalk-related features on drivers’spatial yielding compliance at signalized midblock crosswalks.The study used observational survey data collected from fifteen flash-based signalized midblock crosswalks located in Las Vegas,Nevada.Three logistic regression models,with crosswalk-related features only,non-crosswalk features only,and combined features,were developed and compared.It was revealed that the performance difference between the model with crosswalk-related features only and combined features was insignificant.This study found that the presence of state’s law signs,“PED XING”signs,and placement of rectangular rapid flashing beacons(RRFBs)on the advanced pedestrians crossing signs(APCSs),are significant factors for high spatial yielding compliance.On the contrary,the yield line’s presence at a distance greater than 40 ft from the crosswalk,presence of one stage crossing,and high Annual Average Daily Traffic(AADT)negatively affects the spatial yielding compliance.Moreover,the findings suggest that researchers should be careful about excluding the non-crosswalk features from the analysis.To improve spatial yielding compliance,several recommendations that the city planners and engineers can adopt are provided.