2 mourn AN CYCLINGTIPS . How videogames are being used for cycling safety research bya de Net tite cei userid toowr nese for Check oat the shelves of your lea videogames store and youll find any number files {hat simulate the experience of driving scar. Games tha simulate riding ike are couserbty rarer. One sch game, however, isthe eitiallyachimed 2013 ite Grand “Tht AatoV (GTAY). {GTA players can ind (and yes, steal) a variety of bikes as they explore the open- world sandbox” that iste ity of Las Santos. ying aso plays a olen one ofthe game's main stones, ‘But beyond the fun of blasting around a tionalised version of Los Angles by bike — and it iefon —eetingin GTA V might actually be sea in the rea- world oo: asa simulator that canbe used by ting safes researcher THE STUDY ‘tthe Det University of Technology inthe Netherlands, group of searchers have been testing GTA V to seit could be uted to hep derstand the decisions that road sees ‘make in hazardous situations. The groups headed by Paso Bazinhyy who both a «jet (hes part oa lation cb in Delf) anda long-time gamer Iwas Baainhyy’s istry with modifying (oe nding” a earlier ame inthe GTA eres that spatked the dea fr this recent research protwhen Iwas kid sed to od Grand The Aut: San Andreas afew versions back. I vers quite easy and fun"he tol CetingTips. “Now Tm doing my research with diving xpetece with the gare Bo T fred ito me group nd they set up. "This the istration, Wee tying to ad outfits posible to use the game asa lator for aelence research andi sem toe possible” azlnshy and his team modded GTA V to create a sel-contained, in-game environment ‘which woul allo them to see how people reacted to various on-road incidents Tent seven study participants were vite to guide one of GTA V's protagonists through a short couse in Los Santos, encountering 12 scripted trafic incidents along the way Some ofthe incidents required the se’ inpatto prevent the ier from ershing —a car palling out rom a parking pot unexpectedly and a ever opening thelr door into the ‘pelts path — while oer indents imply required the rider to pay tention o avoid potent danger Aiden showing rider completing the in-game course with ts 12 rac ineidets. ‘While completing the tra the participants wore an eyetracking device ollie researchers tose where the participants were loking they enoountered each tafe incident. “We combine an eyevacker and the game, so we were able to see where peopl ook inthe ame in el ime,” aznsyy sid. "So that's unique — i han been done before And ‘we also made the foundation for ture research because we now have developed ast of tools which an llow to make sch scenario as we hive demonstrated any projets inthis esto.”‘This ideo shows where the trial participant was looking while riding the course. THE BENEFITS OF GTAY ‘These ofeye tracing devices in oad safety research isnt new. They've been used for yrs now to determine how effective road user are at detecting hazardous tutions round ther, bot in ea-world tet and with simulators, So what is itabout GTA V that ves it research potenti as eyeing simulator? Fora tar traditional diving (andcylng simulators are tough to work wth, expensive te modi, nd often lckpecepl dlty” — tht ia sense of realism. By contrat the physics engines that power adem vdeogunes, not to mention the graphical capabilities the machines that x then ll fra mth nore rei, serve perience. Aad there ae oer benefits to GTA. “The huge world of 100 Blometers squat ors gives some possibilty aswel sid Buzinskyy."And the leit ofthe game... f we put enough effort we can probably even putt eae cty of Dl, where Iam right now nthe game asi is The eit ofthe ame isthe bigest strength” OTHER RESEARCH “Tiss the fs time GTA Vhas been used for academic research, Fale this year, researchers from the U.S sed the GTA V wold to teach Alto rsogise tre sgns ‘ita prt ofthe pzle when comes to cresting smart ad safe automated vies “Totraln the network the authors develop a method to automatically collet abeled data ftom Grand het Auto 5a videogame,” the study's abstract ead. “Using this method, they elle dataset of 14 mllon images with and without stop signs arose dierent environments, weather conditions, and times of day. Convolutional neural network trained nd tested on this data can detect 9.5% ofthe stops signs within 2o mers ofthe vehile witha fale postive rate of 6% and an average error in distance of 2m to 2.4m." Despite these and other research applications forthe GTA V envionment, there ae pitfalls to conser No las eopyright concerns fom the game's publisher, Rockstar Games. “Lhink we stated inthe very at sentence of our paper, a the moment Rockstars bit they tying to sue a couple of guys over the use ofthe game. So sbi ofa grey area,” azlnsyy sid. “l’skind of shame which [think snot lly correct. But the other 19, the anes who have used GTA fr exampleto tain Al — Al for autonomous ding — those guys have done quite large-scale, “Think they pot hundreds of thousands ofmages from the gam opine. think that pissed off Rockstar. So we ae trying toe bit smaller ele than th THE RESULTS ‘So what id anh and his team ahiew with theists’? In short: they conime that GTA does sem to have potential a eyeing simulator Part of the reason for that is the ability to combine in-game data wit ee-traching data ~ something nt ofered by texdonlsnulators, \With the GTA V plus eye-rackng setup user's gaze data an be mapped, in real-time, guns in-game variables suchas theirs speed and he dtetion they heading plus the speed of othe vehicles. Thiscanprovidea deeper understanding ofthe way eeists pereive and interact withthe world around the, andthe pies vole in those interactions2S eT ‘ret Sinn shams rent a hn se er Sere eS “The GTA. setup canals allow simulation that are considerably more nterstve than tration vehicle simulators, Rather than forcing the set simply fellow an entry re Aetermined routine 8 fon is the combination of ee tracking pls the GTA V game allows the possibility of riggring different events bated onthe nse’ gaze. Perhaps ‘making eye eontact witha diver at confusing intersection prompss the driver to top, rushing the simulation in different deetion? WHAT'S NEXT? Bualinslys study sell jst the ening. was designed totes the apis ofthe yetraeking and GTA V combination and now thats proven effective, uch more ca be done “Ihinkthe nest step, and what im ell excited abou, swe wan to sets possible to use GTA Vin coupled simulator where you combine two games, basically asa network, and hen you put two pope inte diferent PCs an then you et them drive and eee snd then you se how they behave with each other” sid Bains, who comes to this research from the fd of autonomous driving, “Thats ell hard and dificult to do with teadtonl driving simultors—is realy expensive. And now Fant tose ita’ posible GTA basil. "Tthink that’s the net step which wel do in afew months rom now” Asin Baslinshy’s inital study the eves and driver prtipants inthe proposed study ‘would oth be flowing erp routine featuring a series of interactions with other oad ser inching each ther Bazllashyisalso keen to use GTA V to investigate how people behave whe ding e- ies, goth mare n many counties sround the word including Baznelyy’ “In the Netherlands quite some people now move to eikes and it's not relly understood vl how they behave in trafic aswel he std, "So maybe tht could be another area ‘whch wl research, But we have o deine the exact topic yet.” “Ther ls potenti when t comes to nereasing the reais ofthe simlator setup. “In order fo the patlpantst contol he bec n GTA Vwe ued game controll,” asilasyy and colleagues wrote nthe conference paper. “It may be benef to develop setup tat inks GTA V with astatonary bieyee platform, sina to those of existing eling simulators.” While Baztnsky and his team ae only just ishing the groundwork, lear there's at potentil inthis space, I would sem that GTA Vian jst one ofthe most rtaly aclsime videogames of alltime, it also has great promise in the word of esting safesy research, helping researchers better understand how eit ree to and behave aroundRelated Posts pisaus ea (Hailes cere Sah aa CT Pare