Pedestrians and vehicles often share the road in complex inner city traffic. This leads to interactions between the vehicle and pedestrians, with each affecting the other's motion. In order to create robust methods to reason about pedestrian behavior and to design interfaces of communication between self-driving cars and pedestrians we need to better understand such interactions. In this paper, we present a data-driven approach to implicitly model pedestrians' interactions with vehicles, to better predict pedestrian behavior. We propose a LSTM model that takes as input the past trajectories of the pedestrian and ego-vehicle, and pedestrian head orientation, and predicts the future positions of the pedestrian. Our experiments based on a real-world, inner city dataset captured with vehicle mounted cameras, show that the usage of such cues improve pedestrian prediction when compared to a baseline that purely uses the past trajectory of the pedestrian.
Interactions among traffic agents have been explored in prior work by means of explicit communication between pedestrians and drivers @cite_41 , pedestrians and cars @cite_28 @cite_26 @cite_31 , implicit communication @cite_13 , crosswalks scenarios @cite_24 @cite_4 , through the usage of gestures @cite_42 , and by analyzing interactions with objects that may interfere with pedestrian awareness of the environment @cite_22 . Recent work presented by Rasouli and Tsotsos @cite_34 summarized pedestrian behavior studies, discussing interactions between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles, and also presented factors that pedestrians take into consideration when crossing streets. @cite_9 used VR to insert pedestrians in virtual environments. The focus of the study was to estimate the pedestrians' acceptance of autonomous cars. Rothenb " u @cite_28 used a Wizard of Oz approach to analyze the interactions between pedestrians and autonomous cars, where the driver camouflaged themselves to blend in with the seat, simulating the appearance of autonomous vehicles.
@cite_26 @cite_4 @cite_22 @cite_41 @cite_28 @cite_9 @cite_42 @cite_24 @cite_31 @cite_34 @cite_13
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Interactions between vehicles and pedestrians have always been a major problem in traffic safety. Experienced human drivers are able to analyze the environment and choose driving strategies that will help them avoid crashes. What is not yet clear, however, is how automated vehicles will interact with pedestrians. This paper proposes a new method for evaluating the safety and feasibility of the driving strategy of automated vehicles when encountering unsignalized crossings. MobilEye sensors installed on buses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, collected data on 2,973 valid crossing events. A stochastic interaction model was then created using a multivariate Gaussian mixture model. This model allowed us to simulate the movements of pedestrians reacting to an oncoming vehicle when approaching unsignalized crossings, and to evaluate the passing strategies of automated vehicles. A simulation was then conducted to demonstrate the evaluation procedure. In urban environments traffic safety is primarily determined by the successful interaction between road users. In order to define behavioral requirements for future autonomous vehicles, an understanding of these interactions is needed. Therefore this paper analyzes the interaction between drivers and pedestrians at crosswalks from both the driver's and the pedestrian's perspective. A study with driving experiments in real-life traffic was conducted. The study not only investigates how drivers respond to pedestrians who intend to use the crosswalk, but also their response to pedestrians who waive their right-of-way. An analysis of recorded driving and video data identified typical behavior patterns of drivers approaching a crosswalk, as well as of pedestrians crossing on it. Supplemented by questionnaires filled in by drivers and pedestrians, we determined factors which have a relevant impact on successful driver-pedestrian interaction. We confirmed that with higher initial speeds, drivers tend to exhibit more anticipatory driving behavior. Contrary to previous studies, the presented results show a significant influence of the vehicle's speed on the pedestrian's decision process. The gained insights into the driver-pedestrian interaction process provide an opportunity to develop autonomous driving functions with a cooperative driving behavior that conforms to the expectations of both pedestrians and vehicle occupants. How will pedestrians and bicyclists interact with autonomous vehicles when there is no human driver? In this paper, we outline a novel method for performing observational field experiments to investigate interactions with driverless cars. We provide a proof-of-concept study (N=67), conducted at a crosswalk and a traffic circle, which applies this method. In the study, participants encountered a vehicle that appeared to have no driver, but which in fact was driven by a human confederate hidden inside. We constructed a car seat costume to conceal the driver, who was specially trained to emulate an autonomous system. Data included video recordings and participant responses to post-interaction questionnaires. Pedestrians who encountered the car reported that they saw no driver, yet they managed interactions smoothly, except when the car misbehaved by moving into the crosswalk just as they were about to cross. This method is the first of its kind, and we believe that it contributes a valuable technique for safely acquiring empirical data and insights about driverless vehicle interactions. These insights can then be used to design vehicle behaviors well in advance of the broad deployment of autonomous technology. Cooperative interaction in traffic is vital for resolving a wide range of ambiguities arising from road users' actions. Autonomous vehicles are no exception and require the ability to understand the intention of road users and communicate with them in order to ensure their safety and maintain traffic flow. In this paper, we address the problem of traffic interaction by analyzing a large sample of pedestrians communicating with drivers. We highlight the ways pedestrians communicate and use a logistic regression model to identify what factors influence communication patterns of pedestrians and how. We also discuss practical challenges regarding the recognizing and understanding of pedestrians' intention and how our theoretical findings can help to solve them. Our analysis suggests that pedestrians predominantly rely on implicit communication cues such as stepping onto the road to transmit their intention of crossing. In addition, we found that the presence of traffic signal, street width, and pedestrian group size can influence the frequency and type of pedestrian communication, while factors such as pedestrians' age and gender did not show any significant impact.