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Development of a Roadway‐Crossing Simulator for Actual Walking and Evaluation of Pedestrian Behavior

Pedestrians accounted for 36.6% of traffic accident fatalities in Japan (2019). Elderly pedestrians are often involved in such accidents while crossing a road. In order to investigate the characteristics of pedestrians who are prone to such accidents, we developed a ‘Roadway‐Crossing Simulator for actual walking’. The simulator projects a virtual traffic environment that is accurately reproduced in size and shape by eight projectors on 8.0‐m‐wide screens placed on both sides of a pedestrian. The simulator can motion‐capture the head, center of the scapula, and hips of a crossing pedestrian. In this study, we measured and analyzed the crossing behaviors of 10 young and 20 elderly people in a 7.5‐m section from a roadside zone before entering the road to the other end of the crosswalk. We report from this virtual traffic scenario the ‘Traffic accident incidence rate’, ‘Walking speed’, ‘Distance to pedestrians and vehicles’, ‘Inter‐vehicle selection ratio’ and ‘Elapsed time at roadside zone and roadway’. © 2021 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.