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Smartphones are nowadays indispensable devices in daily life. Their rapid technological development makes it possible to have almost all necessary information on them, which facilitates their spread among all users. However, this extensive use has led to many distraction problems while performing other main tasks, such as activities on the road, which can also impact people's safety. Therefore, various experts focused their attention on issues related to drivers looking at their mobile phones; recently, researchers from different disciplines saw the need to deepen knowledge also on the phenomenon of vulnerable road users distracted by digital devices, especially when approaching signalized intersections. This study builds on and seeks to extend this area of research by analyzing the effects of digital distraction on pedestrians as they approach unsignalised intersections located on roundabout entrances and exits. The aim of the research is to understand the extent to which the task of checking social media affects pedestrian reaction and crossing times, as well as to identify which elements attract the most pedestrian attention. To achieve this goal, an eye-tracking study was designed, in which participants wearing eye-tracking glasses were asked to walk a predefined route, once checking their social media apps and once walking without distracting technological elements. The results showed an 84% increase in reaction time when using the phone, while only a slight rise in crossing time was found. The general conclusions about the most observed elements when walking are also consistent with the main findings of previous literature studies.
Chiara Gruden; Irena Ištoka Otković; Matjaž Šraml. Pedestrian safety at roundabouts: Their crossing and glance behavior in the interaction with vehicular traffic. Accident Analysis & Prevention 2021, 159, 106290 .
AMA StyleChiara Gruden, Irena Ištoka Otković, Matjaž Šraml. Pedestrian safety at roundabouts: Their crossing and glance behavior in the interaction with vehicular traffic. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 2021; 159 ():106290.
Chicago/Turabian StyleChiara Gruden; Irena Ištoka Otković; Matjaž Šraml. 2021. "Pedestrian safety at roundabouts: Their crossing and glance behavior in the interaction with vehicular traffic." Accident Analysis & Prevention 159, no. : 106290.
Smartphones have become an integral part of our everyday lives and keep us busy while doing other primary activities such as driving, cycling or walking in traffic. The problem of digital distraction among drivers has been largely addressed, and interest is growing also on vulnerable road users as well. In fact, high percentages of pedestrians and cyclists are accustomed to checking their devices while moving in traffic. This research links to the presented theme and aims to investigate the extent to which digital distraction in the form of social media app checking influences pedestrian behavior. The focus of the study is specifically on signalized intersections. An outdoor, eye-tracking experiment was conducted on a specific route consisting of various elements typical of urban areas. Participants were asked to walk the predefined route twice, encountering three signalized intersections: the first time they were asked to walk with their smartphone in hand, the second time without. The recordings of each participant’s route were then analyzed, examining reaction time, crossing time and speed, fixations and gaze paths. The results show a clear impact of digital devices on pedestrians’ attention by increasing their reaction and crossing times and decreasing crossing speeds. In addition, the analysis of fixations found that 82.54% of the time was devoted to the smartphone, while interest in other street elements decreased from 16.64% to 4.03%.
Chiara Gruden; Irena Ištoka Otković; Matjaž Šraml. Safety Analysis of Young Pedestrian Behavior at Signalized Intersections: An Eye-Tracking Study. Sustainability 2021, 13, 4419 .
AMA StyleChiara Gruden, Irena Ištoka Otković, Matjaž Šraml. Safety Analysis of Young Pedestrian Behavior at Signalized Intersections: An Eye-Tracking Study. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (8):4419.
Chicago/Turabian StyleChiara Gruden; Irena Ištoka Otković; Matjaž Šraml. 2021. "Safety Analysis of Young Pedestrian Behavior at Signalized Intersections: An Eye-Tracking Study." Sustainability 13, no. 8: 4419.
Walking is the original form of transportation, and pedestrians have always made up a significant share of transportation system users. In contrast to motorized traffic, which has to move on precisely defined lanes and follow strict rules, pedestrian traffic is not heavily regulated. Moreover, pedestrians have specific characteristics—in terms of size and protection—which make them much more vulnerable than drivers. In addition, the difference in speed between pedestrians and motorized vehicles increases their vulnerability. All these characteristics, together with the large number of pedestrians on the road, lead to many safety problems that professionals have to deal with. One way to tackle them is to model pedestrian behavior using microsimulation tools. Of course, modeling also raises questions of reliability, and this is also the focus of this paper. The aim of the present research is to contribute to improving the reliability of microsimulation models for pedestrians by testing the possibility of applying neural networks in the model calibration process. Pedestrian behavior is culturally conditioned and the adaptation of the model to local specifics in the calibration process is a prerequisite for realistic modeling results. A neural network is formulated, trained and validated in order to link not-directly measurable model parameters to pedestrian crossing time, which is given as output by the microsimulation tool. The crossing time of pedestrians passing the road on a roundabout entry leg has been both simulated and calculated by the network, and the results were compared. A correlation of 94% was achieved after both training and validation steps. Finally, tests were performed to identify the main parameters that influence the estimated crossing time.
Chiara Gruden; Irena Otković; Matjaž Šraml. Neural Networks Applied to Microsimulation: A Prediction Model for Pedestrian Crossing Time. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5355 .
AMA StyleChiara Gruden, Irena Otković, Matjaž Šraml. Neural Networks Applied to Microsimulation: A Prediction Model for Pedestrian Crossing Time. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (13):5355.
Chicago/Turabian StyleChiara Gruden; Irena Otković; Matjaž Šraml. 2020. "Neural Networks Applied to Microsimulation: A Prediction Model for Pedestrian Crossing Time." Sustainability 12, no. 13: 5355.
Pedestrian mobility is one of the most sustainable transport alternatives as it offers significant environmental, social and economic benefits. In fact, the non-motorization contributes to the reduction of emissions and at the same time, walking is able to revive purchases and also sociality and communication between people. The present paper focuses on the assessment of a section of a pedestrian area located in the center of the Municipality of Kalamaria, which is one of the biggest Municipalities in the Thessaloniki Metropolitan area, Northern Greece. The pedestrian area which was examined includes the oldest and most important pedestrian street in the Municipality, as it is located in the central business district (CBD) and it serves a large number of pedestrian flows on a daily basis. Also, the construction of a metro station in the area is expected to further increase the pedestrian flows. The analysis of the paper includes the evaluation of the existing situation of the pedestrian street through Viswalk, which is a microscopic software for pedestrian simulation. The aim of the specific evaluation is the identification of variations in the Level of Service (LOS), as the pedestrian composition and flows change. The results of the simulation show that even tripling the pedestrian flow in the pedestrian area will not cause a significant drop in LOS, with the exception of specific sections of the pedestrian street, where bottlenecks are formed.
Socrates Basbas; Tiziana Campisi; Antonino Canale; Andreas Nikiforiadis; Chiara Gruden. Pedestrian level of service assessment in an area close to an under-construction metro line in Thessaloniki, Greece. Transportation Research Procedia 2020, 45, 95 -102.
AMA StyleSocrates Basbas, Tiziana Campisi, Antonino Canale, Andreas Nikiforiadis, Chiara Gruden. Pedestrian level of service assessment in an area close to an under-construction metro line in Thessaloniki, Greece. Transportation Research Procedia. 2020; 45 ():95-102.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSocrates Basbas; Tiziana Campisi; Antonino Canale; Andreas Nikiforiadis; Chiara Gruden. 2020. "Pedestrian level of service assessment in an area close to an under-construction metro line in Thessaloniki, Greece." Transportation Research Procedia 45, no. : 95-102.
Nowadays, pedestrian safety is a growing problem: on the one hand pedestrian movement is increasing, on the other hand measures to improve walkers' safety are still scarce. During the years, various behavioural models have been proposed, which consider several parameters characterizing both the environment and the road users. Many studies define accident risk as a combination of three main factors, which are the accident occurrence probability, the vulnerability of the involved users and the economic and social damages due to the accident. The approaches spotted in literature about pedestrian safety assessment are various and they mainly deal with vehicle-pedestrian accidents. These studies have been developed in order to foresee and reduce possible losses in human lives. Also pedestrian-pedestrian encroachments can lead to dangerous consequences, but researches about them are still limited. This study aims to highlight the correspondence and/or the differences between different analysis methods applied to pedestrian field, focusing on situations where no interactions with vehicular traffic exist. This is one step of a wider research, which has been carried out on a confined space, selected because of easy replicability of its general geometrical features and of the effects on pedestrian trajectories induced by some local peculiarities of the facility. The study focuses on the evaluation of a real case, which has been monitored through the use of cameras and analysed via a dedicated tool. The achieved results have been then compared to the outputs obtained by reconstructing the same situation in a micro-simulation model. The first step - video acquisition and elaboration - allowed to observe how people behave in the examined area and how the environment influences their trajectories, while the second phase permitted to understand if a microsimulation tool can reliably reply pedestrian movement in the analysed scenario and therefore provide surrogate safety values comparable to the ones obtained from real data. In the model, a simplified but still accurate environment has been set up: homogeneous geometric features have been drawn and no obstacles have been considered. The modelled pedestrian flow is a bi-directional, 2400 ped/h flux, characterized by heterogeneity of agents: both male and female adults. In order to be able to compare the data obtained by video footages and elaborated through an ad hoc tracking tool with outputs of the microsimulation model, from the whole flow on the ramp some intersecting pedestrians have been selected in both directions of walking. This cross-study of two different techniques has allowed to inspect the effects of the environment on pedestrian dynamics and to precautionary estimate the level of safety via calculation of surrogate safety parameters.
Chiara Gruden; Tiziana Campisi; Antonino Canale; Giovanni Tesoriere; Matjaz Sraml. A cross-study on video data gathering and microsimulation techniques to estimate pedestrian safety level in a confined space. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 2019, 603, 042008 .
AMA StyleChiara Gruden, Tiziana Campisi, Antonino Canale, Giovanni Tesoriere, Matjaz Sraml. A cross-study on video data gathering and microsimulation techniques to estimate pedestrian safety level in a confined space. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 2019; 603 (4):042008.
Chicago/Turabian StyleChiara Gruden; Tiziana Campisi; Antonino Canale; Giovanni Tesoriere; Matjaz Sraml. 2019. "A cross-study on video data gathering and microsimulation techniques to estimate pedestrian safety level in a confined space." IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 603, no. 4: 042008.