Many factors affect road safety, but research constantly shows that drivers are the major cause of critical situations that could potentially lead to a traffic accident in road traffic. Visual information is a crucial part of input information into the driving process; therefore, distractions of overt visual attention can potentially have a large impact on driving safety. Modern eye tracking technology enables researchers to gain precise insight into the direction and movement of a driver’s gaze during various distractions. As this is an evolving and currently very relevant field of road safety research, the present paper sets out to analyse the current state of the research field and the most relevant publications that use eye tracking for research of distractions to a driver’s visual attention. With the use of scientometrics and a qualitative review of the 139 identified publications that fit the inclusion criteria, the results revealed a currently expanding research field. The narrow research field is interdisciplinary in its core, as evidenced by the dispersion of publication sources and research variables. The main research gaps identified were performing research in real conditions, including a wider array of distractions, a larger number of participants, and increasing interdisciplinarity of the field with more author cooperation outside of their primary co-authorship networks.
12 March 2019 in European Transport Research Review
One of the pillars of road safety strategies, in almost every country in the world, is training and education. Due to the diversity and different extents of evaluation methods, the influence of educational and training programs on traffic safety is still limited. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effect of the Slovenian educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”. For this purpose 183 participants, divided into two groups: ones who participated in the program and others who did not, fulfilled the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) in order to identify their most common errors and violations. The results, based on the best model of multi-group moderator effect, indicate that the link between Violations and Accidents is significantly different between those who participated in the program and those who did not. This link is weaker among the respondents who participated in the program compared to others who did not. This may lead to the conclusion that the group of drivers who participated in the program has a “weaker” Violations resulting in accidents.
Even though autonomous cars have not yet crossed into the mainstream car market, their adoption seems inevitable, but not much is known about the purchasing intention of ACs and potential influences on it. To better understand the influences of various factors on purchasing intentions of autonomous cars, research using bibliometrics, an online survey and SEM modelling was performed. Based on an analysis of previous research work and the unified theory of acceptance of technology, an empirical model was produced and tested using data obtained from an online survey involving 266 individuals. The goal was to analyse which characteristics of autonomous cars, socio-demographic variables of potential buyers, and buyers’ personal and social characteristics could potentially influence the adoption of autonomous cars. The results show that factors of car safety, buyer age and level of education, perceived social influence, anxiety and performance expectancy are significantly correlated to purchasing intention of ACs, while correlations with other factors to purchasing intentions have not been proven.
The urban mobility system is an important factor in social development and must, therefore, be tackled in a way that enables balanced, sustainable development. The purpose of the present work was to introduce a new holistic approach to urban mobility system (UMS) planning, which involves a strategic decision-making process with a broad involvement of various stakeholders. For this purpose, an innovative model was created by synthesizing the focus group (FG) method with the nominal group technique (NGT), SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and the fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) method. The fuzzy approach was chosen for its ability to incorporate imprecise and vague information and make a decision-making UMS process more realistic. Accordingly, the objective of the paper was to propose a newly developed model that will (considering the integration of various urban mobility subsystems) enable the detection, identification, and ranking of key priorities required for a more holistic approach to UMS planning. The results revealed that the developed integrated model enables acquired areas to be ranked according to priorities, which further allows the development of scenarios. Moreover, the model allows a better understanding of how to search for compromises when one is faced with multi-criteria decision-making and coordination of frequently contradictory goals. A new integrated urban mobility model, as proposed herein, was also successfully tested in a real-life application, which proves its potential for use in sustainable urban mobility planning in a holistic way.
17 December 2015 in Promet - Traffic&Transportation
The goal of the study was to investigate if the drivers behave in the same way when they are driving a motorcycle or a car. For this purpose, the Motorcycle Rider Behaviour Questionnaire and Driver Behaviour Questionnaire were conducted among the same drivers population. Items of questionnaires were used to develop a structural equation model with two factors, one for the motorcyclist’s behaviour, and the other for the car driver’s behaviour. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were also applied in this study. Results revealed a certain difference in driving behaviour. The principal reason lies probably in mental consciousness that the risk-taking driving of a motorbike can result in much more catastrophic consequences than when driving a car. The drivers also pointed out this kind of thinking and the developed model has statistically confirmed the behavioural differences. The implications of these findings are also argued in relation to the validation of the appropriateness of the existing traffic regulations.
15 December 2014 in Tourism and hospitality management
Purpose – of the study is to indicate the path of much needed segmentation in the Croatian tourist supply. Therefore, it aims to identify the destination-specific elements of bicycle destinations in Europe, within the context of cycle tourism demand. Design – While the quality of the tourist product is proportional to the level of logistics implementation and the rivalry on the tourist market is supply chain-based, the focus is on a crucial element of tourist supply chain management—information. Methodology – The study recognizes both counterparts on the market, although highlighting the tourist supply. The data on supply was collected by researching the internet information sources available to cycle tourists while making travel decisions. Findings on the destinations’ logistic product variables are compared to criteria set by the researched cycle tourism demand. Approach – This small-scale research of bicycle tourism supply aims at testing the selected criteria for the purpose of a sequential wider research oriented towards providing a list of possible upgrades for Croatian destinations. Findings – Among all features attributable to a destination, research demonstrated that the cycle tourists’ primary focus is on information accessibility. The cycling-specific supply recognizes this information dependency and targets the market by a variety of needed information, while general tourist sites often lack complete information. Value – Similar research of bicycle tourism does not exist. The field is mainly contributed to trough conceptual discussions and studies of existing practice. This research establishes to what extent the demand and supply side match by identifying the common attributes of cycle tourism destinations.