Vulnerable Road Users Safety in Infrastructure Assisted Intelligent Transportation System

The impact of Automated Vehicles (AVs) on road traffic safety has become the focus of discussions among governmental organizations, academia, stakeholders, and OEMs. Questions about how safe the automated driving features should be and how the road infrastructure should be improved for the arrival of this new technology must be clarified to enable full acceptance by the customers and society and prepare the mobility of future cities. The fundamental architecture of automated vehicles comprises perception, planning, decision, and actuation. The operation of the perception system, which is responsible for understanding the environment in which the vehicle is inserted, relies mainly on the onboard sensors. However, the available ranging and vision sensors, e.g., LiDAR, radar, and camera, have several limitations. Scenarios with occlusion present a real challenge for state-of-the-art perception systems. The occlusion, caused by obstructing the sensors’ detection field, limits the vehicle’s perception ability and inhibits the detection of other road users in the surroundings, especially Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs). Infrastructure composed of Roadside Units (RSUs) equipped with infrastructure-based sensors can overcome the perception limitations of a system based solely on onboard sensors by monitoring the road environment with a larger field of view and reduced sensitivity to occlusion. This paper presents a collaborative approach for smart infrastructures and automated vehicles for vulnerable road users’ collision avoidance. The proposed extended perception system comprises four main modules: traffic monitoring, long-term motion prediction, collision risk assessment, and trajectory planning. In the event of a safety-critical scenario, the infrastructure generates a safe and comfortable evasive maneuver to avoid a possible collision. Hence, the proposed approach provides a complete solution to overcome scenarios with occluded VRUs. It allows AVs to react to a critical situation with a longer time-to-collision than other systems relying only on onboard sensors, increasing the chance of successful avoidance even when implementing smoother maneuvers. This contributes considerably to the safe and comfortable operation of automated vehicles.

Innovative advanced systems have been proposed for improving the safety and efficiency in the mobility of road users in Europe. Particularly for road transport, new ITS-based Cooperative Services for preventing accidents in critical points and situations are emerging where road users, vehicles and a sensorised integrative infrastructure are the main actors. With this motivation, and taking into account the road infrastructure's capability to incorporate new Cooperative Systems technology, this study aims to provide a first set of guidelines for speeding up the convergence process among a broad set of multi-heterogeneous sensor data fusion, high level situation understanding and assessment, and communications capabilities, all of them necessary for the development of advanced ITS safety-related services previously mentioned. Analysis is focused on vulnerable road users (VRUs) and on how this kind of services will contribute to provide more intelligent and safer urban traffic environments. A typical scenario involving VRU is studied as a preliminary analysis of the impact that these systems have on the safety of a specific group of road users. Some of the underlying principles of the proposed architecture will be validated in a field operational test FP7 European project.

Pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooterists are Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) in traffic accidents. The number of fatalities and injuries in traffic accidents involving vulnerable road users has been steadily increasing in the last two decades in the U.S., even though road vehicles now have perception sensors like cameras to detect risk and issue collision warnings or apply emergency braking. Perception sensors like cameras are highly affected by lighting and weather conditions. Cameras, radar, and lidar cannot detect vulnerable road users in partially occluded and occluded situations. This paper proposes the use of Vehicle-to-VRU communication to inform nearby vehicles of VRUs on trajectories with a potential collision risk. An Android smartphone app with low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) advertising is developed and used for this communication. The same app is also used to collect motion data of VRUs for training. VRU motion data are smoothed using a Kalman filter, and an LSTM neural network is used for future motion prediction. This information is used in an algorithm comparing Time-To-collision-Zone (TTZ) for the vehicle and VRU, and issues driver warnings with different severity levels. The warning severity level is based on the analysis of real data from a smart intersection for close vehicle and VRU interactions. The resulting driver warning system is demonstrated using proof-of-concept experiments. The method can easily be extended to a VRU collision-mitigation system.

BackgroundIn 2022 in Poland pedestrians constituted 24.3% of all road fatalities and 22.2% of seriously injured. The number of killed pedestrians decreased in comparison with 2021 by 12.7% and data...

Low- and middle-income countries have the highest proportions of road accident fatalities among vulnerable road users. This review established the effectiveness of road engineering and enforcement of traffic laws and regulation interventions to prevent injury (fatal and non-fatal) to vulnerable road users from low- and middle-income countries. We searched the following databases up to Jan 04, 2018: PubMed; OvidSP Medline, OvidSP Embase, OvidSP Transport, Cochrane Injuries Group Specialised Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Proquest ERIC database. In addition, road safety organizations’ databases and conference proceedings were hand searched to Jan 2018. Twenty-eight studies were matched to the study inclusion criteria of which we did not analyze six studies assessed as C grade for risk-of-bias. We estimated the effect-size of eighteen studies. Four of the studies presented a unique outcome or a study design; it was not possible to calculate a standardized effect-size. The risk-of-bias rating of the studies included for effect-size analysis ranged between A and B grade. There was no evidence that road engineering interventions were effective for road traffic death counts, the number of injuries, and road accident casualty outcomes. While the enforcement of mandatory helmet law was ineffective in reducing road traffic death counts, intervention efforts proved effective in decreasing injuries. Enforcement of mandatory helmet law, automated-enforcement-system (camera), and pedestrian signal interventions were effective in increasing road users’ compliance with road safety laws. Daytime running-headlight intervention reduced the number of road accident casualties. The quality of evidence for outcomes was ranked very low. Further research is needed to examine the effects of road engineering interventions on injury severity outcomes. Even though the evidence was of very low quality, traffic laws, and regulation interventions when combined with enforcement initiatives or with, other approaches proved effective in changing drivers’ behaviors. Research on road engineering interventions combined with automated-enforcement-systems must be explored in an LMIC setting. The review found evidence gaps on the effects of segregation of vulnerable road users from motorized vehicles, changes in intersections, and bicycle infrastructure interventions.

An intercept study of footbridge users and non-users in Malaysia

The combined effect of vehicle frontal design, speed reduction, autonomous emergency braking and helmet use in reducing real life bicycle injuries

The existing RaD efforts for protecting vulnerable road users (VRU) are mainly based on perception techniques, which aim to detect VRUs utilizing vehicle embedded sensors. The efficiency of such a technique is largely affected by the sensor's visibility condition. Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) communication can also contribute to the VRU safety by allowing vehicles and pedestrians to exchange information. This solution is, however, largely affected by the reliability of the exchanged information, which most generally is the GPS data. Since perception and communication have complementary features, we can expect that a combination of such approaches can be a solution to the VRU safety. This is the motivation of the current work. We develop theoretical models to present the characteristics of perception and communications systems. Experimental studies are conducted to compare the performances of these techniques in real-world environments. Our results show that the perception system reliably detects pedestrians and other objects within 50 m of range in the line-of-sight (LOS) condition. In contrast, the V2P communication coverage is approximately 340 and 200 meters in LOS and non-LOS (NLOS) conditions, respectively. However, the communication-based system fails to correctly position the VRU w.r.t the vehicle, preventing the system from meeting the safety requirement. Finally, we propose a cooperative system that combines the outputs of the communication and perception systems.

Ensuring the safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs), including pedestrians, cyclists, electric scooter riders, and motorcyclists, remains a major challenge for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and connected and automated vehicles (CAV) technologies. Real-world VRU tests are expensive and sometimes cannot capture or repeat rare and hazardous events. In this paper, we present a lightweight, configurable simulation framework that follows European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) VRU testing protocols. A rule-based finite-state machine (FSM) is developed as a motion planner to provide vehicle automation during the VRU interaction. We also integrate ego-vehicle perception and idealized Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) awareness to demonstrate safety margins in different scenarios. This work provides an extensible platform for rapid and repeatable VRU safety validation, paving the way for broader case-study deployment in diverse, user-defined settings, which will be essential for building a more VRU-friendly and sustainable intelligent transportation system.

The share of road vehicles in urban transport systems is a challenge for modern and dynamically developing urban areas in accordance with the concept of sustainable and Smart Cities. Increasingly, there is a need to promote and adapt urban space to the movement of vulnerable road users (VRU). As part of a clear emphasis on the issue of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, the aim of the article is to define the typology and hierarchy of solutions contributing to the increase in VRU safety in cities. The research process was based on the use of grounded theory. In the adopted research methodology, the use of the Delphi method made it possible to identify the approach of various European cities to the use and implementation of technical, technological and organizational solutions affecting safety. The research made it possible to evaluate individual solutions in VRU safety management and to indicate a list of recommendations for improving security, taking into account the views of international experts. In addition, the results of this study may enrich the current literature, helping to understand the perception of solutions implemented in urban transport systems as a holistic set of interrelated elements supporting pedestrian safety and increasing their role in cities.

ObjectiveDeveloping countries are experiencing the highest burden of road traffic injuries (RTI) with more than 85% of road traffic deaths worldwide. Epidemiologic data are scarce in sub Saharan Africa to...

EXPERT ASSESSMENTS IN DECISION MAKING: RISKS AND SAFETY The aim of research, based on the results of which this article was prepared, is the analysis of the main methodological provisions of providing an expert assessment (audit) of engineering and planning decisions, organizational and management measures to ensure road safety (RS) for vulnerable road users, as well as determining ways to improve it in Ukraine taking into account the specific features of the movement of the specified categories of the population and progressive world practices. Since the current level of mortality and injuries due to traffic accidents (TA) in Ukraine significantly exceeds the average European indicators, and the level of effectiveness of scientific and methodological support of activities in the field of road safety is insufficient, the relevance and social significance of the research topic are obvious. The research results are presented in the form of the authors' opinions regarding the following problems (areas of activity) in the RS field, which should be subject to expert assessment: – the actual level of traffic accidents among the main categories of vulnerable road users in Ukraine; – modern domestic and foreign scientific– methodical and engineering– planning approaches to the formation of individual elements of an effective and safe transport infrastructure, as well as progressive traffic management systems (TS); –  the possibilities and expediency of implementing engineering and planning solutions, organizational and management measures to improve RS in Ukraine in accordance with the principles of sustainable mobility, taking into account the interests of certain types of vulnerable traffic participants (pedestrians, low- mobility population groups, children, cyclists).

Road safety for vulnerable road users, particularly cyclists, remains a critical global issue. This study explores the potential of multimodal visual and haptic interaction technologies to improve cyclists’ perception of and responsiveness to their surroundings. Through a systematic evaluation of various visual displays and Haptic Feedback mechanisms, this research aims to identify effective strategies for recognizing and localizing potential traffic hazards. Study 1 examines the design and effectiveness of Visual Feedback, focusing on factors such as feedback type, traffic scenarios, and target locations. Study 2 investigates the integration of Haptic Feedback through wearable vests to enhance cyclists’ awareness of peripheral vehicular activities. By conducting experiments in realistic traffic conditions, this research seeks to develop safety systems that are intuitive, cognitively efficient, and tailored to the needs of diverse user groups. This work advances multimodal interaction design for road safety and aims to contribute to a global reduction in traffic incidents involving vulnerable road users. The findings offer empirical insights for designing effective assistance systems for cyclists and other non-motorized vehicle users, thereby ensuring their safety within complex traffic environments.

Pedestrians, being vulnerable road users (VRU), are disproportionately affected by road traffic crashes. Many factors influence driver-pedestrian interactions and hence pedestrian safety. Within these interactions, drivers play a critical role as operators of the vehicle. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what factors influence drivers’ perceptions and actions when interacting with pedestrians in different situations. To answer this question, a driving simulator study was designed to investigate the effects of age (younger and older drivers), cognitive load (no task, 2-back task), the presence (or absence) of a zebra crossing, lighting (daylight, after dark), pedestrian position (standing, walking), and the presence (or absence) of light-emitting diode (LED) strips on drivers’ yielding behaviours during interactions with pedestrians. Two groups of drivers (23 younger drivers: Mdnage = 22; 19 older drivers: age Mdnage = 64) completed two experimental drives during daylight and after dark. Objective measures (probability of yielding and average deceleration) were used to interpret yielding behaviour and the factors influencing it. Drivers were more likely to give way to pedestrians waiting by the roadside (in comparison to those walking towards the crossing), when a zebra crossing was present (in comparison to no crossing), and after dark (in comparison to daylight). In those trials where the pedestrians wore LED bands to enhance their conspicuity, the average deceleration was reduced, resulting in smoother braking. The results focus on the factors that influence drivers’ response to pedestrians in the simulator environment, as well as the value of using LED bands for road safety. The results inform the development of policy and interventions to improve the safety of vulnerable road users.

Smartphones have long become an omnipresent part of our life. Equipped with both a broadband internet connection and advanced GPS onboard sensors, the idea is to use them as mobile sensors for active safety systems that aim at protecting vulnerable road users such as pedestrians or cyclists. This paper gives a comprehensive analysis of today's smartphones GPS accuracy on an inner-city bicycle track. In addition, the transmission latencies of a prototypical bicycle warning system are evaluated. The results show that while the lateral deviations are still too high to allow for lane-level localization, the longitudinal accuracy as well as the transmission latencies are good enough for many active safety applications already.