Devi Subramanian Lakshmi, Sherony Rini, Kearney Joseph K, Plumert Jodie M, O'Neal Elizabeth E
The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Collaborative Safety Research Center, Toyota Motor North America, USA.
J Safety Res. 2024 Feb;88:24-30. doi: 10.1016/j.jsr.2023.10.005. Epub 2023 Nov 4.
The risk of motor vehicle-bicyclist crashes and fatalities is greater during nighttime than daytime lighting conditions, even though there are fewer cyclists on roadways at night. Vehicle Adaptive Headlamp Systems (AHS) aim to increase the visibility of bicyclists for drivers by directing a spotlight to illuminate bicyclists on or near the roadway. AHS technology also serves to alert bicyclists to the approaching vehicle by illuminating the road beneath the rider and by projecting a warning icon on the roadway.
Here, we examined how bicyclists respond to different AHS designs using a large screen, immersive virtual environment. Participants bicycled along a virtual road during nighttime lighting conditions and were overtaken by vehicles with and without an AHS system. The experiment included five treatment conditions with five different AHS designs. In each design a box of white light was projected beneath the rider; in four of the designs an icon was also projected on the road that varied in color (white or red) and position (to the left of the rider at midline or to the left of the front wheel). Participants in the control condition experienced only non-AHS vehicles.
We found that riders in all AHS treatment conditions moved significantly farther away from overtaking vehicles with AHS systems, whereas riders in the control condition did not significantly move away from overtaking vehicles without AHS systems.
The experiment demonstrates that AHS has potential to increase bicycling safety by influencing riders to steer away from overtaking vehicles.
尽管夜间道路上的骑自行车者较少，但机动车与骑自行车者碰撞及死亡的风险在夜间照明条件下比白天更大。车辆自适应前照灯系统（AHS）旨在通过引导聚光灯照亮道路上或附近的骑自行车者，提高驾驶员对骑自行车者的可见度。AHS技术还通过照亮骑车人下方的道路并在道路上投射警告图标，提醒骑自行车者有车辆驶来。
在此，我们使用大屏幕沉浸式虚拟环境研究了骑自行车者对不同AHS设计的反应。参与者在夜间照明条件下沿着虚拟道路骑行，并被配备和未配备AHS系统的车辆超车。该实验包括五种处理条件，采用五种不同的AHS设计。在每种设计中，在骑车人下方投射一个白色光盒；在四种设计中，还在道路上投射一个图标，其颜色（白色或红色）和位置（在中线骑车人的左侧或前轮左侧）各不相同。对照组的参与者只体验未配备AHS的车辆。
我们发现，在所有AHS处理条件下的骑车人，与配备AHS系统的超车车辆保持的距离显著更远，而对照组的骑车人与未配备AHS系统的超车车辆保持的距离没有显著变化。
该实验表明，AHS有潜力通过影响骑车人避开超车车辆来提高骑行安全性。
