Coupling intention and actions of vehicle-pedestrian interaction: A virtual reality experiment study

The interactions between vehicles and pedestrians are complex due to their interdependence and coupling. Understanding these interactions is crucial for the development of autonomous vehicles, as it enables accurate prediction of pedestrian crossing intentions, more reasonable decision-making, and human-like motion planning at unsignalized intersections. Previous studies have devoted considerable effort to analyzing vehicle and pedestrian behavior and developing models to forecast pedestrian crossing intentions. However, these studies have two limitations. First, they mainly focus on investigating variables that explain pedestrian crossing behavior rather than predicting pedestrian crossing intentions. Moreover, some factors such as age, sensation seeking and social value orientation, used to establish decision-making models in these studies are not easily accessible in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we explored the critical factors influencing the decision-making processes of human drivers and pedestrians respectively by using virtual reality technology. To do this, we considered available kinematic variables and analyzed the internal relationship between motion parameters and pedestrian behavior. The analysis results indicate that longitudinal distance and vehicle acceleration are the most influential factors in pedestrian decision-making, while pedestrian speed and longitudinal distance also play a crucial role in determining whether the vehicle yields or not. Furthermore, a mathematical relationship between a pedestrian's intention and kinematic variables is established for the first time, which can help dynamically assess when pedestrians desire to cross. Finally, the results obtained in driver-yielding behavior analysis provide valuable insights for autonomous vehicle decision-making and motion planning.