Studying pedestrians′ crossing behavior during automated vehicle interactions: A Wizard of Oz study

As a substitute for communication with a human driver, additional communication cues for AVs have been proposed [1]. To analyze their effect on traffic flow, preceding studies captured pedestrians ' crossing decision in an unnatural manner, e.g., via data collection devices (e.g., [2]). In this paper, we explored the applicability of two optical tracking systems to capture crossing behavior more naturally in real-world conditions. In a Wizard of Oz study, N = 35 participants encountered a simulated AV. They were instructed to show natural crossing behavior, which was recorded with a light barrier and a SMARTTRACK3/IF. Results showed that both optical tracking systems can be utilized to capture pedestrians ' crossing behavior while interacting with AVs. The light barrier recorded the movement more often validly. Still, the correlation between recordings of both tracking systems was high which indicated a high convergence of measurement results.