Virtual Reality Experiment to Study the Role of Social Conformity in the Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles: Pedestrian Crossing Data in VR, 2022-2023

The Veronica project data includes two parts: taxi passenger choice data and pedestrian crossing data. This part primarily involves pedestrian crossing data. The key motivation for the study is to measure the pedestrain crossing behaviours in the mixed traffic of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and normal vehicles. This study uses virtual reality (VR) to simulate two urban mid-block environments, one in downtown Toronto, Canada and the other in central Newcastle, UK, to investigate the crossing behaviour of 428 participants (9,262 observations). The research questions addressed in this paper, in the context of unmarked mid-block crossing, are: (a) Do various vehicle types, i.e., normal vehicles and AVs, impact pedestrian behaviour? (b) How do other pedestrians influence one’s crossing behaviour? (c) How do traffic characteristics, road type, and environmental characteristics impact pedestrian behaviour? (d) What is the influence of demographics on pedestrian behaviour? and, Are there differences in pedestrian behaviour in different countries?