An investigation of road crossing in a virtual environment

The reported study employed a virtual reality (VR) system, using a head mounted display (HMD), to investigate road crossing behavior in children and young adults. Younger children (aged 5–9 years) made the greatest number of unsafe road crossings and the oldest participants (aged >19 years) the fewest. Overall performance was better (fewer unsafe road crossings) in uniform speed than uniform distance trials, consistent with previous research suggesting that pedestrians base road crossing decisions on inter-vehicle distance rather than vehicle speed. Results are discussed in terms of road crossing behavior and the use of VR simulations in the study of pedestrian behavior.