Visual Communication Console : Sharing Safety-Critical Information between Heavy Vehicles and Vulnerable Road Users

Abstract: Background. Over the years, between 2013 and 2017, accidents between HeavyGoods Vehicles and Pedestrians have come to increase. Leading causes stem frominattentiveness and lack of communication between driver and pedestrians. Withthe advent of Autonomous vehicles, set to be able to reduce accidents, uncertainties in how communication and trust between humans and machines will be formed re-mains. Objectives. The research aim has been to understand the difficulties and problemssurrounding heavy vehicles, and the problems that today’s heavy vehicle operators faces, from which a technical solution that addressees the uncovered needs, is devel-oped. Methods. Design Research Methodology and MSPI Innovation Process has beenused in combination for acquiring and validating information around the problem.Shadowing sessions, unstructured interviews has been used for acquiring information.Literature reviews have been done to find academic validation in hypotheses statedthroughout the research. From the information gathered, iterative prototypes havebeen built. Results. From the needfinding that was conducted, safety around trucks was thefield on which the scope of the research was focused around. Due the larger size oftruck, decision-making through eye contact and intention determining is set to beharder when dealing with heavy vehicles, leading to an uncertainty around heavyvehicles residing with pedestrians in how to act around these. With the operatorsof these vehicles finding the unpredictable nature of pedestrians and cyclist in trafficto be troublesome and safety imposing, the research aim was set around addressing these needs. A communication console was developed, that is able to communi-cate safety-critical information between heavy vehicle operators and vulnerable road users, as means of reducing front collisions between said parts. Conclusions. The console has been developed through iterative prototyping andtesting, with design requirements being acquired through learnings and feedbackgathered from each iteration. The resulting communication console being presentedis able to share critical information being sought by pedestrians for decision-making,primarily that of eye contact and intentions of oncoming vehicles. The system servesas a proof of concept, that could through extensive traffic safety testing, help reducefront collisions between Heavy Goods Vehicles and Vulnerable Road Users, as well as, through further development, become the central communication console for au-tonomous vehicles to ensure partnership and intuitive communication between these and the surroundings.