Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092

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Accident Analysis and Prevention

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aap

Autonomous vehicles and street design: Exploring the role of medians in

enhancing pedestrian street crossing safety using a virtual
reality experiment
Youngha Joo a, Seung-Nam Kim a, *, Baek-Chan Kim a, Gi-Hyoug Cho b, Jeongseob Kim b
a
Department of Urban Design and Studies, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chung-Ang University, 84, Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 06974, Republic of
Korea
b
Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, 50, UNIST-gil, Ulju-gun, Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: As traffic lanes and on-street parking spots can potentially be downsized with the introduction of autonomous
Autonomous vehicles vehicles (AVs), the possibility of additional spare road space becoming available arises in future urban streets.
Pedestrian safety While discussions on converting the leftover space into pedestrian-friendly alternatives exist, allocating that
Street design
limited space to which alternative is foreseen to be another practical issue shared in both urban and trans­
Urban and transportation planning
Future streets
portation planning. However, evidence-based guidance on the issue provided from the actual verification on
Virtual reality whether or to what extent the proposed alternatives may have an effect seems to be absent. Therefore, with an
emphasis on pedestrian safety, this study focused on the “median strip” alternative as a first example and,
through a VR simulation experiment aimed at empirically examining its suggested role on enhancing street
crossing safety and further exploring its possible influence on pedestrians’ trust toward autonomous driving.
With 99 participants, perceived safety (individual assessments of safety), performance-based safety (crossing
success/abandonment and collision occurrence), and trust were either questioned or recorded for nine scenarios
with varying crossing conditions. A combination of multilevel models and cross-tabulation results indicate that
medians seem especially significant in ensuring the performance-based safety results of pedestrians even when
AVs are driving at high speeds or with smaller gaps, thus suggesting it a win–win option for both. Insights and
implications on the role and management of medians in future streets are further provided.

1. Introduction
With the rise of autonomous vehicles (AVs), several studies have
suggested that, with suitable operation-management policies and sup­
portive street design, streets in the near future where AVs have come
into wide use may possibly be more walk-friendly and, in effect, become
a shared space (Botello et al., 2019; Meeder et al., 2017; Millard-Ball,
2018; NACTO, 2019). One of the grounds for such anticipation is the
AV’s technical aspects and driving method. Alongside facilitating a more
pleasant walking environment with reduced emissions and noise levels,
AVs are expected to lower the risk of pedestrian accidents and increase
walking safety through a mixture of preventing human errors in driving,
reducing the total traffic volume through car-sharing systems and
network-based traffic flow adjustments, and providing predictable gaps
for when pedestrians cross the street via grouping two or more cars into
separate platoons (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2015; Litman, 2022; Maurer
et al., 2016; Milakis et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2014). Another reason
presented for the potential improvement in walkability, though, stems
from the possibility of additional spare road space becoming available
with the introduction of AVs. Due to the increase in driving accuracy and
traffic flow efficiency, both lane width and the number of lanes can be
reduced, and the need for on-street parking can also decrease because of
increased car-sharing and the spatiotemporal dispersion of parking de­
mands (Cugurullo et al., 2020; Duarte and Ratti, 2018; Gavanas, 2019;
González-González et al., 2020; Heinrichs, 2016; Zhang et al., 2015).
Consequently, there comes an opportunity to convert the leftover road
space into pedestrian-friendly alternatives that are anticipated to
enhance walking safety, comfort, and amenities, such as widened

* Corresponding author at: 209-707, Chung-Ang University, 84, Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea.
E-mail addresses: yhjoo221@cau.ac.kr (Y. Joo), snkim@cau.ac.kr (S.-N. Kim), kk000127@naver.com (B.-C. Kim), gicho@unist.ac.kr (G.-H. Cho), jskim14@unist.
ac.kr (J. Kim).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2023.107092
Received 10 July 2022; Received in revised form 7 March 2023; Accepted 23 April 2023
Available online 29 April 2023
0001-4575/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Joo et al.
sidewalks, traffic islands or longer median strips, and curbside or mid-
street pick-up/drop-off zones (NACTO, 2019; Riggs et al., 2020;
Schlossberg et al., 2018; Stead and Vaddadi, 2019).
Amidst such expectations, however, the need for an apt vision in
allocating the spare road space generated by AVs also seems to come to
the fore (Meeder et al., 2017; Stead and Vaddadi, 2019). Allocation of
the free space to which alternative is foreseen to be a practical urban
design and transportation planning issue at the small- to medium-sized
neighborhood street level in particular, because even if the extra space
from downsizing traffic lanes or parking spots becomes available, its
absolute amount will not be large because of the street’s small number of
lanes or spots in the first place. Several alternatives may be freely
combined and applied for wide streets where much free space is
recoverable, whereas only one might be selectively applicable for nar­
row streets. However, research in the relevant fields does not provide
ample, evidence-based guidance in making that choice. While ideas and
conceptual discussions on the various possible alternatives and their
expected effects have been presented before, no such attempts on their
actual verification seem to have been undertaken. It is unsure whether
or to what extent the alternatives would successfully provide the
anticipated benefits related to walkability or pedestrian safety. Along­
side thoughtful perspectives and reflections, a more scientific approach
accompanied by empirical evidence is also necessary.
In this regard, the “median strip” alternative’s suggested association
with street crossing safety could be, as a first example, considered for
examination. Medians are generally expected to shorten exposure time
to traffic when crossing the street, reduce the area where collisions can
occur, and provide more frequent opportunities for crossing by dividing
the crossing sequence (King et al., 2003). Therefore, when demands for a
shared street space providing opportunities to cross freely anytime,
anywhere arise to meet the capability of autonomous driving improving
pedestrian walkability, a renewed importance of the median may also
emerge in potentially facilitating such safe crossing environments.
Additionally, because of such rising demands for freely crossable shared
streets, the current signal-based traffic system, represented by traffic
lights and crosswalks, may also be required in future to change in the
direction of removing such installations; in that case, medians, which
used to be equipped only on large-scale streets in combination with such
signal systems, may instead be demanded to be installed independently
on all streets as the main instrument in securing street crossing safety.
Subsequently, however, if creating a median in the middle of the road
has either low or no effect, then implementing other alternatives would
be a way to use the spare road space more efficiently. Although studies
regarding the effect of traffic islands or medians on enhancing street
crossing safety are not unprecedented for conventional vehicles, the
mixture of statistically significant (Kang, 2019; Mako and Szakonyi,
2016) and insignificant (Haleem et al., 2015) results, along with the
contextual difference between the driving methods of conventional and
autonomous vehicles, call for a separate examination.
Meanwhile, exploring the possibility of medians enhancing pedes­
trian trust in AVs with its suggested safety effect serving as the con­
necting link may also be of interest. Recently, several studies have
examined the effect of several factors on the trust toward autonomous
driving using empirical data obtained from either virtual or real-world
AV experiences (Deb et al., 2018). Through virtual reality (VR) experi­
ments, a couple of studies have examined the effects of such driving-
related factors as the speed or driving behavior of AVs, or the distance
between them, on pedestrian safety perception and trust toward AVs
(Jayaraman et al., 2019; Woodman et al., 2019). A group of studies has
investigated, in either virtual or real worlds, how the various external
Human-Machine Interfaces (eHMIs) used in AVs may influence the trust
or perceived safety by indicating the vehicle’s intention when interact­
ing with pedestrians (Velasco et al., 2019; Rouchitsas and Alm, 2019;
She et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021). Studies analyzing the effects of the
respondents’ characteristics on their overall trust, receptivity, or safety
perception toward AVs through either VR experiments or real-world
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Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
interaction surveys also form a noticeable group (Das et al., 2020;
Das, 2021; Hulse et al., 2018; Penmetsa et al., 2019; Rahman et al.,
2021; Reig et al., 2018). However, discussions regarding the physical
urban space where AVs would actually come to drive in are mostly
under-examined. Can the street environment also influence the pedes­
trians’ perspective of AVs? Would medians take part in developing trust
toward autonomous driving by increasing safety in street crossing? At­
tempts to deal with such topics would further expand the scope of
studies regarding pedestrian perceptions of AVs and their safety, which
are still at the development stage.
Therefore, this paper aims to conduct an experimental study exam­
ining the median’s suggested effect on enhancing street crossing safety
when AVs are driving along a street, and its further possible influence on
pedestrian trust toward autonomous driving. Given both its effective­
ness in experimental pedestrian safety research (Schneider and Bengler,
2020) and its capability in enabling the presentation of yet unrealized
features, an immersive VR environment simulating a street crossing
situation with AVs was used to obtain the required empirical data. By
examining such possible roles of the median in pedestrian safety, the
study altogether serves as a first step in verifying the suggested utility of
allocating AV-generated future spare road space to pedestrian-oriented
alternatives. Ultimately, since street environments are expected to un­
dergo changes due to the introduction of AVs as with the transformation
of urban space known throughout history to be accompanied by in­
novations in mobility (Kostof, 1992; Muller, 2017; Rodrigue, 2020;
Vuchic, 2007), the results would help provide opportune information
and insights for the urban and transportation planning fields to respond
to those changes proactively.
2. Theoretical background and conceptual research model
This research examines the suggested effect of medians on street
crossing safety and further explores its possible influence on pedestrians’
trust toward autonomous driving. Two theories, namely Affordance
theory and Uncertainty Reduction theory, were drawn upon to build a
conceptual model that articulates the possible relationship among me­
dians, safety, and trust (Fig. 1).
The Affordance theory asserts that people perceive from the envi­
ronment what function or opportunity it may provide or offer to
themselves (Gibson, 1979). That is, certain qualities of an object or the
surrounding environment are said, for example, to “afford” a place to sit,
a chance to jump off a boat, or an instrument to pull something along,
and thereby the perception of affordance would mean perceiving how
one could interact with the environment. In this study, the concept is
applied as the “affordance to cross the street.” Interpreting the action of
crossing the street in terms of affordance is not an untested idea, as has
been exercised before (Azam et al., 2017; Creem-Regehr et al., 2019;
Plumert and Kearney, 2014). The present study further develops such
applications to a situation where the vehicles are autonomous instead of
conventional, and where medians are considered as a major variable.
Suppose that platoons of AVs are driving in a street that is just two or
three lanes wide but without signalized pedestrian crossings. Compared
to when it is absent, the median provides not only a section of the road
safe from collisions but also an opportunity to accept a certain gap in
between two AV platoons more easily by dividing the crossing sequence
into two if necessary. Therefore, the suggested effect of medians on
street crossing safety could be explained by their provision of affordance
in crossing the street.
However, affordance for crossing a non-signalized street while
accepting a gap in the middle of a continuous flow of vehicles is not
usually formed by the median alone. Another aspect of the affordance
theory describes that its perception is a holistic output, where the
environment is perceived as a meaningful whole instead of the indi­
vidual objects or qualities (Bell et al., 2001; Gibson, 1979). This in­
dicates that affordance is formed from an integration of the
environment’s various properties or factors. Accordingly, affordance for
Y. Joo et al.
Fig. 1. Conceptual research model of the study.
accepting a gap and crossing the street can be seen as a combined result
where, in a given street crossing situation, other environmental factors
than medians have also taken effect. In the aforementioned non-
signalized crossing scenario, several environmental factors are known
to determine pedestrians’ gap acceptance. While non-vehicle factors
such as the weather, time of day, or the presence of other pedestrians
may also affect acceptance (Liu and Tung, 2013; Pillai, 2017; Yannis
et al., 2013), the most influential are those related to the “driving
modes” of the vehicle, for example, vehicle speed or the distance be­
tween vehicles (Avinash et al., 2019; Kadali et al., 2015; Liu and Tung,
2013; Onelcin and Alver, 2015; Pawar and Patil, 2015; Woodman et al.,
2019; Yannis et al., 2013; Zhao et al., 2019). In the context of AVs
instead of conventional vehicles, these variables would be configured as
“platooning modes” rather than an individual vehicle’s “driving modes.”
As such, it would be fit to consider not only medians but also the
particularly significant “platooning modes” aspect when arranging the
experimental scenarios in which the affordance is formed. This would
enable the examination of the medians’ suggested effect on safety under
varying platooning conditions while also simultaneously controlling for
those conditions’ own separate effects. Consequently, “medians” and
“platooning modes” were grouped together and collectively referred to
as “crossing conditions”, and then modeled to street crossing safety.
The Uncertainty Reduction theory describes that people seek to reduce
uncertainty by obtaining information when interacting with a new
person or stimuli (Berger and Calabrese, 1974; Kramer, 1999). Origi­
nating from human communications research, the theory can be
expanded to situations other than where communication between in­
dividuals takes place, such as making behavioral decisions in an unfa­
miliar or uncertain environment (Inglis, 2000). The concept can be
further coupled with the notion of “trust.” Such coupling provides the
theoretical link between street crossing safety and trust toward auton­
omous driving. Trust and uncertainty are generally known to have an
inverse relationship (Adobor, 2006; Colquitt et al., 2012; Robert et al.,
2009). When information is obtained, and therefore uncertainty is
reduced, trust is gained. Here, pedestrians and their interactions with
AVs can be explained using an analogy to the connections between these
concepts. If crossing behavior is found to be safe in the presence of AVs,
uncertainty concerning the novel or unfamiliar technology of autono­
mous driving will decrease, which could, in turn, lead to an increase in
its trust. Hence, in addition to the relationship set above, street crossing
safety was further modeled to trust toward autonomous driving.
Meanwhile, previous studies have demonstrated that either percep­
tual or performant approaches are available when operationalizing
street crossing safety. The former measures the perceived safety through
the pedestrian’s individual assessments of safety or risk perception for
crossing the street (Diógenes and Lindau, 2010; Hulse et al., 2018; Lee
and Kim, 2019; Penmetsa et al., 2019; Zhuang and Wu, 2012), while the
latter measures the performance-based safety through actually observ­
able, resultant indicators such as the occurrence of pedestrian crossing
behavior (whether they actually attempt to cross or not) or traffic ac­
cidents/collisions (Congiu et al., 2019; Lee and Abdel-Aty, 2005; Merlin
et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2017). Predictably, adopting both approaches
is also possible (Cho et al., 2009; Johnsson et al., 2018; Lee and Kim,
2021). Accordingly, this study conceptualized “street crossing safety” as
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Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
incorporating both the perceptual and performant aspects, and thereby
subdivided it into “perceived safety” and “performance-based safety”.
Here, the latter was especially included as opposed to preceding AV
studies which, unlike studies on conventional vehicles, have so far
mostly only focused on perceived safety.
3. Methods
3.1. VR experiment
VR methods are being increasingly adopted as a useful tool in
experimental pedestrian safety research (Schneider and Bengler, 2020).
Many studies have repeatedly confirmed their validity by demonstrating
that both the participants perceive the simulated environment as
acceptably realistic, and their perceptions and behaviors within the
virtual world related to street crossing largely match those of the real
world (Azam et al., 2017; Bhagavathula et al., 2018; Deb et al., 2017;
Schwebel et al., 2008). Enabling pedestrian safety experiments without
exposure to direct risks and providing a controlled environment where
conditions other than the target variable (i.e., weather, time, traffic
volume, nearby buildings, and physical design elements) can be held
constant are also valuable methodological advantages of VR simulation
(Schwebel et al., 2008; Woodman et al., 2019). Most critically, VR
methods can allow the simulation of features that have not yet been
technically realized, thus presenting itself particularly useful for studies
concerning AVs. Hence, a VR experiment was chosen as the most
appropriate method for acquiring empirical data on AVs and medians.
Ultimately, such experimental approach would enable discussions on
AV-generated spare road space to surpass those based on solely con­
ceptual deductions or thought experiments.
3.1.1. Participants
As with multiple previous studies implementing VR experiments
(Schneider and Bengler, 2020), the target population was set as adults in
their 20 s and 30 s who are expected to adapt relatively easily to VR
experimental equipment and methods that could be unfamiliar at first
experience. Participants were recruited using advertisements through
social media and web bulletin boards, and snowball sampling processes.
Those whose schedule was available for the experiment and provided
informed consent were selected. Upon participation, several personal
characteristics were surveyed. Age and mean walking speed were
measured as continuous values, where the latter was calculated by
dividing the length of Route B (25 m, detailed description given in
section 3.1.2. and Fig. 2(b)) by the time taken to walk that length.
Gender, urban/transport planning major, driving experience, traffic
accident experience, VR experience, and tendency to jaywalk normally
were recorded binomially (for gender, male/female; others, yes/no).
A total of 100 people participated, and although one person was
excluded in the post-experiment filtering process because of an error
where the data had not been saved, the number of participants can still
be considered as large compared to an average of 69.5 people from 87
VR studies as reviewed by Schneider and Bengler (2020). The partici­
pants consisted of 54 males (54.5%) and 45 females (45.5%), with a
mean age of 26.9 years (SD = 2.92). Around half of the participants (52
Y. Joo et al.
Fig. 2. (a) Example of a street-crossing scenario simulated in VR as seen by the participants. (b) Experimental setup of the two options for crossing the street
introduced to the participants. (c) Participant wearing a wireless HMD and walking freely within the simulated environment while sensors collect their coordinates
within a 6 m × 10 m area of interest.
people, 52.5%) had majored in urban/transport planning, indicating
that the sampling had been conducted fairly evenly across majors and
laypersons. Those with driving experience had a similar proportion (49
people, 49.5%), whereas less than half (37 people, 37.4%) had experi­
enced a traffic accident. 78 individuals had experienced VR before the
experiment, implying that most of the participants were already familiar
with simulated environments. The mean walking speed was observed as
1.15 m/s (SD = 0.14), and around half of the participants (53 people,
53.5%) reported that for two-laned neighborhood streets, they would
normally jaywalk when feasible. All participants provided informed
consent, and were compensated at the end of the experiment for their
time.
3.1.2. Experimental environment
Due to the small number of lanes or parking spots in the first place,
small- to medium-sized neighborhood streets are particularly expected
to face planning and design issues when it comes to allocating the spare
road space generated with the introduction of AVs and following road-
downscaling (NACTO, 2019). In relevance to such an issue, therefore,
the VR environment was set as a two-lane neighborhood street 10 m
wide (including sidewalks) and with low- to mid-story buildings on both
sides. The crossing conditions—the median and platooning mod­
es—were additionally varied to generate different scenarios for the
virtual street crossing situations. The median was either present or ab­
sent and was modeled as a green strip with a width of 1 m and separated
(visually) in height from the road surface. The platooning modes were
set as comprising three sub-variables, namely platoon speed, the gap
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Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
between platoons, and the number of vehicles within a platoon. Platoon
speeds were 20 km/h and 30 km/h, where 30 km/h is the speed limit of
neighborhood streets in the geographical context to which the re­
searchers belong, and 20 km/h is a baseline speed set lower than the
limit since AVs are usually designed to drive slower (NACTO, 2019;
Riggs et al., 2020). The gaps between the platoons were set at a spatial
distance of 27.5 m, 55.0 m, and 82.5 m. While these distances corre­
spond to a temporal gap of 5 s, 10 s, and 15 s, respectively, at a speed of
20 km/h, the spatial gap was set as the standard instead because pe­
destrians tend to judge gaps based on the absolute distance from their
positions rather than the time to arrival (Liu and Tung, 2013; Onelcin
and Alver, 2015; Yannis et al., 2013), and was thus also applied to the
30 km/h condition (corresponding temporal gaps given in Table 1).
Such distances are also in fair agreement with the criteria used in pre­
vious studies (Onelcin and Alver, 2015) or the actual gap acceptance
range of pedestrians (Pawar and Patil, 2015). Lastly, the number of
vehicles within a platoon was two, three, or four, whereas more than
Table 1
Spatial gap between platoons and their corresponding temporal gaps for
different platoon speeds.
Spatial gap Temporal gap
20 km/h 30 km/h
27.5 m 5s 3.3 s
55 m 10 s 6.6 s
82.5 m 15 s 10 s
Y. Joo et al.
four was considered too long for the participants to wait when rolling for
the next available gap. Other environmental factors besides the main
factors, such as weather or time, were controlled by setting them
constant.
Meanwhile, handling the features of AVs regarding their interaction
with pedestrians crossing the street was a subject of concern when
modeling the appearance and movement of AVs. While some partial
aspects of AV-pedestrian interaction, such as eHMIs (Rouchitsas and
Alm, 2019) or driving aggressiveness (Jayaraman et al., 2019) and its
perceptual and behavioral consequences have individually begun to be
addressed, a comprehensive and detailed consensus on the driving
behavior of AVs and the resultant communication upon, deceleration
toward, and acceleration after encountering pedestrians seems yet to be
determined (Papadimitriou E. et al., 2022). Further examination and
discussions on such appear to be in need, let alone are developed enough
to directly apply to modeling the AVs. Therefore, features related to AV-
pedestrian interactions were deemed to exceed the current study’s
scope, and were controlled as for now by not realizing them in the VR
simulation. While this can be recognized as a limitation of the study, it is
still to be noted that the results obtained without AV-pedestrian in­
teractions are those subject to a more extreme condition (in terms of ease
of crossing) than when such interactions are present. Hence, if safety or
trust is gained under the more extreme condition (without interaction),
then the results may be seen as suggesting the robustness of the median’s
safety effects.
For logistic reasons, the 36 possible scenarios from the above
crossing conditions (2 factors with 2 levels (median, platoon speed) and
2 factors with 3 levels (gap between platoons, number of vehicles within
a platoon), 2 × 2 × 3 × 3) were compressed into nine through a
randomly generated orthogonal design via the SPSS (ver. 26) Generate
Orthogonal Design procedure (Table 2a). These were built in VR using
Sketchup and Unity 3D modeling tools (Fig. 2(a)), where the back­
ground street scenery was visualized by simulating the real-world street
environment of a typical two-lane neighborhood street found near the
authors’ institution. With a starting point for crossing the street set a
little distance away from a crosswalk in the middle of the street, a
mailbox was set up on the diagonally opposite side of the road to indi­
cate the target destination, and two options for crossing the street were
introduced to the participants (Fig. 2(b)). Route A is the shortest way to
reach the destination by not using the crosswalk and jaywalking the
street if the participant feels/decides it to be safe to do so under the
given crossing conditions, and in a figurative sense, represents the ideal
situation after the introduction of AVs where more crossing opportu­
nities are provided and pedestrians can freely cross the street anytime,
anywhere. This was the main route subject to experiment, where actual
kinetic experience was provided for the participants and their conse­
quent movement data were collected. Contrarily, Route B, which is
depicted as using the crosswalk instead of jaywalking, was presented as
a conceptual alternative to Route A, presumed to have been selected if
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Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
the participants judged that it would be infeasible to jaywalk under the
given crossing conditions and thereby abandoned such attempt. Though
it was also visually simulated within the VR environment, further actual
crossing experimentation was not conducted for Route B since it was a
simply conceptual option for the participants to express their intention
to abandon their attempt at jaywalking under the current scenario
(further description of the detailed procedures given in section 3.1.4.).
Operation of the crosswalk signals was not implemented within the
simulation since the experiment concentrated on materializing the sit­
uation for Route A (the jaywalking option) while there was no actual
need to realize Route B in detail; accordingly, the traffic lights1 thereby
had no functional role, and the AV platoons which were generated
continuously at both ends of the street drove through the street without
halting (i.e., regardless of the traffic lights). Lastly, to add realism to the
VR experience, both the volume and direction of the platoons’ driving
sounds were simulated to change in real-time according to their relative
locations to the participant.
3.1.3. Apparatus
An HTC Vive Pro Head-Mounted Display (HMD) at a resolution of 4 k
was used to visualize the simulated crossing scenarios. Whereas the ki­
netic experience of the participants in previous AV studies using VR had
been mostly limited to only turning their heads while standing still or
walking on a confined, omnidirectional-treadmill walking simulator (e.
g., Jayaraman et al., 2019; Woodman et al., 2019), the current study
adopted a more advanced wireless setting that enables the participants
to walk freely within the simulated environment (Fig. 2(c)). Sensors
collected the HMD’s coordinates in real-time within a 6 m × 10 m area of
interest where the long side corresponds to the width of the street (Fig. 2
(b)) and thus recorded the participant’s location data while crossing the
street after choosing Route A. This log data, in combination with the
fixed coordinates of the mailbox (target destination) and the varying
coordinates of the AV platoons, was used to process the performance-
based safety measures of whether the participant reached the other
side of the street and whether a collision had occurred (more detail on
the two measures given in section 3.2.).
3.1.4. Procedures
The participants were first given an overall description of the
experiment, where it was explained regarding the experiment’s pro­
cedure that the jaywalking option (Route A) was the main task subject to
actual crossing experimentation, and that the crosswalk option (Route
B) was simply a conceptual alternative to jaywalking and no actual
experimentation would be necessary. Next, those who provided
informed consent on the experiment answered questions regarding their
personal characteristics. Then, before the start of the VR experiment (i.
e., without wearing the HMD), they were asked to walk naturally along a
masking tape that was drawn on the floor of the experimental area in the
same way as Route B. This was to measure their time taken to walk its
1
The authors report a minor error regarding the traffic lights within the
simulation where the pedestrian traffic light was always green, whereas our
actual intention had been it always indicating the red signal. Such may have
interfered with the level of immersion/reality on the jaywalking situation;
however, the experimental situation of attempting to jaywalk had been clearly
recognized by all participants during the experiment description, so other than
the decrease in immersion/reality it is unlikely to have been a critical problem
for the overall purpose and proceeding of the experiment. If the participants
were aware of the error and had felt significant awkwardness or incompatibility
with the overall experimental setting, they would have asked or reported to the
experimenter in any way (e.g., Why do the cars keep driving even when the
pedestrian light is on? I think the traffic light is out of order. The green light is
on, so do I have to wait for the cars to stop? The cars keep driving at the green
light; can I cross the road?), but during more than 900 experiment trials across
100 participants, not a single participant did so. Either they were not aware of
the error, or did not regard it as a significant hindrance to the experiment.
Y. Joo et al. Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092

Table 2a
Orthogonal design of crossing conditions for nine VR experiment scenarios and their descriptive statistics for perceived and performance-based safety.
Scenario number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Crossing conditions
Median O X X O O O O O X
Platoon speed (km/h) 20 20 30 30 30 20 20 20 20
Platoon gap (m) 55 82.5 27.5 82.5 55 82.5 27.5 27.5 55
Platoon number of cars 4 2 4 3 2 4 2 3 3

Perceived safety
Safety of street environment (SD) 4.39 5.91 1.54 4.47 3.31 5.52 2.54 2.51 4.36
(1.59) (1.29) (0.85) (1.55) (1.54) (1.54) (1.24) (1.26) (1.56)
Safety for crossing behavior (SD) 4.00 5.62 1.16 4.44 2.88 5.13 2.05 1.98 3.97
(1.82) (1.52) (0.55) (1.68) (1.75) (1.77) (1.36) (1.36) (1.85)

Performance-based safety
Number of ultimately successful participants (%) 91 (91.9) 97 (98.0) 15 (15.2) 95 (96.0) 72 (72.7) 98 (99.0) 54 (54.5) 54 (54.5) 89 (89.9)
Number of participants where at least one collision 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 29 (29.3) 2 (2.0) 16 (16.2) 3 (3.0) 7 (7.1) 7 (7.1) 3 (3.0)
occurred (%)

n = 891 (99 for each scenario).

length (25 m) in a normal situation and thus calculate their mean
walking speed. Afterward, the VR experiment wearing the HMD started
by experiencing the nine street crossing scenarios in random order. Each
scenario consisted of one or more trials, where for each trial, the par­
ticipants were instructed to first freely observe the situation at the
starting point and assess whether they would be able to cross the street
safely by jaywalking or not; then, if they assessed it as feasible, to
actually try crossing, while if not, to express their intention to abandon
their attempt at jaywalking by showing clear signs of moving toward the
crosswalk. If the participant chose to move toward the crosswalk, then
that scenario would end without further data collection, and the
participant would move on to the next scenario. Contrarily, if the
participant chose to attempt to jaywalk the street, then their movement
data was collected while crossing the street. Here, if the participant
successfully reached the endpoint (mailbox) without colliding with the
AVs, then again, that scenario would end, and the next scenario would
start; otherwise, if the participant entered the road but collided with the
AVs before reaching the endpoint, that trial was ended, and the partic­
ipant returned to the starting point for the next trial where they could
decide again whether to jaywalk or not. Throughout this procedure,
both whether the participant chose to jaywalk the street and ultimately
succeeded or decided to abandon such attempt either eventually or in
the first place, and whether a collision had occurred at least once during
the trial(s), were recorded for that scenario. Furthermore, at the end of
each scenario and before moving on to the next one, questions regarding
the participant’s safety perception for that scenario were also asked and
recorded. Lastly, after all nine scenarios were finished, the participants
answered some final questions regarding their trust toward autonomous
driving. Participants were free to abandon the experiment anytime if
they experienced simulator sickness throughout the procedure, though
none reported as such. All procedures were approved by the institutional
review board of the authors’ institution (Institutional Review Board
Protocol No.: UNISTIRB-20–02-A).
3.2. Measurements
Perceived safety, performance-based safety, and pedestrians’ trust
toward autonomous driving were measured through pairs of relevant
sub-items. Perceived safety asked about the “safety of street environ­
ment”, as the degree to which the given scenario’s platooning mode and
the overall street environment feel safe in terms of traffic safety, and
“safety for crossing behavior”, as the degree to which it feels safe to cross
the street without using a crosswalk within the given scenario. Both
perceptual variables were measured in 7-point semantic differential
scales. Next, performance-based safety consisted of observations on
“crossing success/abandonment”, as to whether the participant chose to
cross the street without using the crosswalk and, in n trials, ultimately
succeeded for the given scenario or, either eventually or in the first
place, abandoned such attempt, and “collision occurrence”, as to
whether a collision had occurred at least once during the n trials for the
given scenario regardless of the ultimate success or abandonment in
crossing. Both performant variables were recorded for each trial in
binomial form (success(1)/abandonment(0), occurrence(1)/non-
occurrence(0)). Lastly, pedestrians’ trust toward autonomous driving
was questioned in terms of the technology’s expected safety compared to
present traffic conditions after having experienced the VR simulation.
“Expected safety of street crossing when platooning” asked the degree to
which street crossing in the future would be safer than now if AV pla­
tooning modes were actually implemented. “Expected safety of auton­
omous driving” asked the degree to which autonomous driving
technology as a whole would be safer than current non-autonomous
driving by humans if implemented in the future real world. Both vari­
ables were measured with three levels, namely “safer,” “no difference,”
and “more dangerous”.
3.3. Analysis framework
The analysis framework is illustrated in Fig. 3. With the distinction
between the within-subject scenario-by-participant level (Level 1) and
the between-subject individual participant level (Level 2) to account for
the hierarchical nature of the data, three study models were set based on
the conceptual research model. Models 1 and 2 examined the relation­
ship between the crossing conditions and perceived/performance-based
street crossing safety, respectively, at the within-subject level (unit of
analysis = each scenario by the participant) while controlling for the
potential effects of both personal characteristics and the survey order.
Here, the survey order indicates which order each experiment and mid-
experiment perception survey was conducted and was entered as a
continuous variable (first to ninth). Note that for model 2, perceived
safety was additionally entered in explaining performance-based safety,
since the latter can be seen as a resultant outcome of the behavioral
response (crossing decision) to the former perceptual evaluation as per
the general psychological process of [environment—perception/eval­
uation—behavior & outward result] (Bell et al., 2001; Mehrabian and
Russell, 1974). Model 3 examined the relationship between street
crossing safety and pedestrians’ trust toward autonomous driving at the
between-subject level (unit of analysis = individual participant) while
controlling again for personal characteristics. Perceived and
performance-based safety were each substituted in this case by the
overall average perceived safety and the overall rate of successful

6
Y. Joo et al.
Fig. 3. Analysis framework for the study consisting of three study models, with the distinction between the within-subject scenario-by-participant level (Level 1) and
the between-subject individual participant level (Level 2).
crossing, which were either averaged or calculated for each participant,
respectively. Multilevel analyses (Hox et al., 2018) and a set of cross-
tabulation analyses (George and Mallery, 2019) were conducted for
models 1 and 2 through Mplus (ver. 8.7), and logistic regression analyses
(Hosmer et al., 2013) were conducted for model 3 through SPSS (ver.
26).
4. Results
4.1. Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics for perceived and performance-based safety
were derived from a sample of 891 scenario-by-participants (9 × 99) and
are presented for each scenario (Table 2a). For perceived safety, the
mean value of “safety for crossing behavior” is always to some degree
lower than that of “safety of street environment.” This may be because
the former is related to an actual action and, therefore, more concrete
than an opinion regarding the overall environment, which in turn leads
to becoming more aware of its risk. Across the scenarios, however, both
measures’ mean values share a similar tendency. The most apparent
pattern is that for either measure, scenarios with low speeds or large
gaps scored high, whereas the opposite holds for scenarios with high
speeds or small gaps. The second and third scenarios, each being doubly
subject to the previously mentioned speed and gap conditions in a
converse way to each other by chance, were perceived for both measures
as the most safe and unsafe, respectively. As for the median and number
of cars within the platoon, however, a relation with the perceived safety
measures does not seem apparent in the meantime. Meanwhile, for
performance-based safety, both crossing successfulness and collision
occurrence also follow a pattern that logically corresponds to that of
perceived safety. The number of ultimately successful participants
without using the crosswalk (Route A) is lower for scenarios with high
speeds or small gaps, while the number of participants where at least one
collision occurred is inversely higher for those scenarios. Again, though,
it is hard to draw a consistent pattern for the median or the number of
cars from the descriptive statistics only.
As for the two autonomous driving trust measures, the proportion of
responses for each of its three levels was calculated from the 99
7
Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
participants (Table 2b). For “expected safety of street crossing when
platooning,” 67 (67.7%) answered that street crossing in the future
would be safer than now if AV platooning modes were actually imple­
mented, 8 (8.1%) answered that there would be no difference, and 24
(24.2%) answered that it would be more dangerous. For “expected
safety of autonomous driving,” 37 (37.4%) answered that autonomous
driving would be safer than current non-autonomous driving by
humans, another 37 answered that there would be no difference be­
tween the two, and 25 (25.3%) answered that it would be more
dangerous. In sum, the participants evaluated autonomous driving in a
moderately to fairly positive way, with somewhat more trust in the
platooning mode enabling safer crossing than the technology as a whole.
Again, this might be because crossing the street amidst AV platoons is a
more specific notion compared to the abstract concept of autonomous
driving as a whole, combined with a further alleviation of its uncertainty
because of the direct experience of that very situation through the cur­
rent study’s crossing simulations.
4.2. Model 1: Perceived safety
Results of the multilevel linear regressions with “safety of street
environment” and “safety for crossing behavior” as the dependent var­
iables are illustrated in Table 3. Random intercepts were inserted in the
regression models to account for the correlations in within-subjects
repeated experiments, and both fixed and random effects were drawn
for each level from 886 samples (five outliers excluded). It was found
that both dependent variables are the same in the significance and di­
rection of the independent variables’ fixed effects. As expected,
Table 2b
Proportion of responses for each autonomous driving trust level.
Expected safety compared to Safer No More
present traffic conditions difference dangerous
Expected safety of street crossing 67 8 (8.1) 24 (24.2)
when platooning (%) (67.7)
Expected safety of autonomous 37 37 (37.4) 25 (25.3)
driving (%) (37.4)
n = 99.
Y. Joo et al. Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092

Table 3 insignificant (not reported in the table). The random effects were sig­
Multilevel linear regression results with “perceived safety of street environment” nificant in both models, supporting the validity of the multilevel
and “perceived safety for crossing behavior” as the dependent variable. modeling approach. The overall model performance was also found to
Dependent Perceived safety of street Perceived safety for crossing be fairly positive for both (R2 = 0.629, 0.602). Since the two perceived
variable environment behavior safety measures share not only similar patterns in their descriptive sta­
Parameter Estimate SE p Estimate SE p tistics but also identical tendencies as a dependent variable, they were
(β) (β) combined into one variable when entered in further analyses by taking
Fixed Effects their average value for each scenario-by-participant (Cronbach’s alpha
Level 1—Within-subject (scenario-by-participant) = 0.928).
Median (no*, − 0.073 0.047 0.122 − 0.077 0.050 0.120
yes)
Platoon speed − 0.639 0.044 0.000** − 0.529 0.040 0.000** 4.3. Model 2: Performance-based safety
(20*, 30 km/
h)
Results of the multilevel logistic regression with “crossing success/
Platoon gap 1.035 0.048 0.000** 0.998 0.047 0.000**
(27.5*, 55 abandonment” as the dependent variable are illustrated in Table 4a. As
m) with the previous multilevel regression models for perceived safety,
Platoon gap 1.789 0.047 0.000** 1.795 0.043 0.000** both fixed and random effects were drawn from 884 samples (seven
(27.5*, 82.5
outliers excluded) by introducing randomness in the intercept term. This
m)
Platoon − 0.074 0.041 0.075 − 0.024 0.049 0.617
time, as was anticipated, the median significantly increased the odds of
number of ultimately succeeding in crossing the street without using the crosswalk
cars (2*, 3) (Route A). Platoon speed and the gap between platoons also had un­
Platoon − 0.030 0.045 0.504 − 0.017 0.050 0.729 derstandably significant effects; the odds of abandoning the attempt to
number of
cross the street was higher for faster speeds, while the odds of choosing
cars (2*, 4)
Survey order 0.001 0.021 0.958 0.016 0.023 0.480 to cross the street and ultimately succeeding increased as the gap
Level 2—Between-subject (individual participant) became wider. Additionally, the participants ultimately succeeded more
Age − 0.201 0.113 0.077 − 0.149 0.102 0.144 in situations where they perceived it as safe, suggesting that their
Gender (male*, 0.058 0.224 0.795 0.023 0.241 0.922
crossing decisions may also be based, at least partially, on their
female)
Major (no*, − 0.714 0.203 0.000** − 0.456 0.211 0.030**
perceptual evaluations of the street. However, the number of vehicles
yes) within a platoon and personal characteristics did not significantly affect
Driving 0.396 0.213 0.062 0.160 0.235 0.497 the odds of success or abandonment, possibly indicating that there is no
experience significant difference in street crossing performance regarding the pla­
(no*, yes)
toon’s size or the pedestrian’s individual differences. Note that the
Accident − 0.306 0.207 0.139 − 0.192 0.225 0.393
experience
(no*, yes) Table 4a
VR experience 0.108 0.274 0.692 − 0.067 0.304 0.825 Multilevel logistic regression results with “crossing success/abandonment*” as
(no*, yes)
the dependent variable.
Mean walking 0.059 0.098 0.551 0.048 0.103 0.643
speed Parameter Estimate SE Odds p
Tendency to − 0.033 0.207 0.873 − 0.168 0.215 0.433 (β) ratio
jaywalk
Fixed Effects
normally
Level 1—Within-subject (scenario-by-participant)
(no*, yes)
Median (no*, yes) 0.170 0.071 2.689 0.017**
Intercept 4.772 1.398 0.001** 3.534 1.343 0.009**
Platoon speed (20*, 30 km/h) − 0.218 0.068 0.281 0.001**
Platoon gap (27.5*, 55 m) 0.346 0.087 7.510 0.000**
Random Effects Platoon gap (27.5*, 82.5 m) 0.565 0.158 26.823 0.000**
Within-subject 0.371 0.024 0.000** 0.398 0.024 0.000** Platoon number of cars (2*, 3) 0.074 0.073 1.538 0.309
lvl. residual Platoon number of cars (2*, 4) 0.027 0.079 1.168 0.735
variance Average perceived safety 0.749 0.061 9.064 0.000**
Between- 0.806 0.071 0.000** 0.896 0.057 0.000** Survey order 0.049 0.026 1.116 0.057
subject lvl. Level 2—Between-subject (individual participant)
residual Age − 0.024 0.087 0.979 0.786
variance Gender (male*, female) 0.171 0.309 1.550 0.579
Major (no*, yes) 0.235 0.229 1.820 0.306
Snijders- 0.629 0.602 Driving experience (no*, yes) 0.189 0.301 1.619 0.530
Bosker R2 Accident experience (no*, yes) 0.434 0.245 3.031 0.076
* Reference category. VR experience (no*, yes) − 0.341 0.304 0.419 0.263
Mean walking speed − 0.091 0.115 0.180 0.428
** Significant at the 0.05 level.
Tendency to jaywalk normally − 0.377 0.235 0.382 0.109
n = 886.
(no*, yes)
Intercept − 1.274 1.394 0.361
perceived safety decreased with a higher platoon speed, while
conversely, it increased as the gap between platoons became wider. Random Effects
Additionally, participants with urban/transport planning majors tended Within-subject lvl. residual 3.290
to perceive the crossing situation as more unsafe than laypersons, sug­ variance††
Between-subject lvl. residual 0.891 0.075 0.000**
gesting that they are possibly stricter in evaluating the environment
variance
coming from their standpoint as a specialist. The median, however, did
Snijders-Bosker R2 0.903
not show a significant effect on perceived safety, as with the number of
vehicles within a platoon, the survey order, and other personal char­ * Reference category.
acteristics; interactions between the median and other experiment level ** Significant at the 0.05 level.
variables that were further tested on a trial basis were also found to be n = 884.
†
Level 1 residual variance is fixed at 3.290 for logit models.

8
Y. Joo et al. Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092

survey order was only marginally insignificant at the 5% significance Table 4c

level in increasing the odds of success, suggesting that the participants Three-way cross-tabulation analysis results for collision, median, and the gap
may have adapted to the VR environment and experimental task to some between platoons.
degree as the experiment proceeded. The model had a high overall Platoon Median Collision Total Test results
performance (R2 = 0.903), with the significance of the random effect gap (m)
X O
supporting its multilevel approach.
27.5 X 70 29 99 χ2 = 26.120 (p
As for “collision occurrence,” the second measure for performance-
(70.7%) (29.3%) (100.0%) = 0.000)
based safety, a logistic regression could not be conducted because of a O 183 14 197
quasi-complete separation problem. This is where the dependent vari­ (92.9%) (7.1%) (100.0%)
able separates an independent variable or a combination of independent 55 X 96 3 (3.0%) 99 χ2 = 2.424 (p
variables almost completely (i.e., an independent variable or a combi­ (97.0%) (100.0%) = 0.119)
O 182 15 197
nation of independent variables predicts the dependent variable almost (92.4%) (7.6%) (100.0%)
perfectly), resulting in the maximum likelihood coefficient estimate(s) 82.5 X 99 0 (0.0%) 99 Fisher’s exact
not existing for the independent variable(s) in question (Albert and (100.0%) (100.0%) test* (p =
Anderson, 1984). Thereby, a set of three-way cross-tabulation analyses O 192 1 (0.5%) 193 1.000)
(99.5%) (100.0%)
was conducted instead, where collision occurrence and median are the
main variables of interest while platoon speed and the gap between * Fisher’s exact test was conducted instead of a chi-square test since the number
platoons, the other two crossing condition variables found to be signif­ of cells whose expected values were lower than five exceeded the criteria of less
icant in the above crossing success/abandonment model, are addition­ than 25% of the total number of cells (2x2 = 4, 4x0.25 = 1).
ally taken into consideration for control. When controlling for platoon n = 884.
speed, the collision frequency is significantly reduced when the median
is present for 30 km/h, compared to 20 km/h where there is no such
Table 5
significance (Table 4b). Similarly, compared to the other gap sizes, the Logistic regression results with “expected safety of street crossing when pla­
collision frequency is significantly reduced when the median is present tooning” and “expected safety of autonomous driving” as the dependent
for the smallest 27.5 m gap (Table 4c). As such, the presence or absence variable.
of the median seems to have a significant effect in determining whether
Dependent Expected safety of street Expected safety of
a collision occurs, particularly in situations where AV platoons are variable crossing when platooning autonomous driving
driving either at higher speeds or with narrower gaps.
Parameter Odds SE p Odds SE p
ratio ratio

4.4. Model 3: Trust toward autonomous driving Personal street crossing safety measures
Overall 2.949 0.356 0.002** 3.072 0.337 0.001**
average
Results of the logistic regressions with “expected safety of street perceived
crossing when platooning” and “expected safety of autonomous driving” safety
as the dependent variables are illustrated in Table 5. In both measures, Overall rate of 1.788 1.563 0.710 0.285 1.597 0.432
the “more dangerous” and “no difference” response levels were inte­ successful
crossing
grated into one category for brevity and set as the reference, thereby
comprising a binomial classification of either expected as being safer
Personal characteristics
than the current status or not. From 99 samples, it was found that the
Age 1.150 0.090 0.118 1.081 0.086 0.369
overall average perceived safety of the VR crossing simulation was the Gender 0.582 0.555 0.330 0.583 0.537 0.316
main factor influencing the future expectations of autonomous driving (male*,
safety. The more the participant generally perceives that crossing the female)
street amidst simulated AVs driving on the road is safe, the odds of Major (no*, 2.290 0.566 0.143 1.177 0.518 0.754
yes)
expecting crossing the street when AVs are driving in platoons to be safer Driving 0.441 0.566 0.148 0.277 0.576 0.026**
in the future increases; the same also applies to expectations on the experience
autonomous driving method as a whole, where both such expectations (no*, yes)
can further be understood as trust toward the technology. Note that for Accident 1.163 0.542 0.781 2.135 0.523 0.147
experience
the expected safety of autonomous driving as a whole, driving experi­
(no*, yes)
ence also had a significant effect. The odds of distrusting the technology VR experience 1.931 0.613 0.283 3.435 0.704 0.080
increased for those experienced in driving, suggesting the possibility (no*, yes)
that drivers might be more fastidious toward accepting the notion of Mean walking 0.405 1.809 0.617 0.689 1.775 0.834
speed
Tendency to 0.629 0.524 0.376 1.948 0.502 0.184
Table 4b jaywalk
Three-way cross-tabulation analysis results for collision, median, and platoon normally
speed. (no*, yes)
Intercept 0.002 3.593 0.081 0.002 3.709 0.088
Platoon Median Collision Total Test results
Nagelkerke R2 0.271 0.270
speed (km/
X O Model fit p = 0.019 p = 0.016
h)

20 X 195 3 (1.5%) 198 χ2 = 2.000 * Reference category.

(98.5%) (100.0%) (p = 0.157) ** Significant at the 0.05 level.
O 377 14 391 n = 99.
(96.4%) (3.6%) (100.0%)
30 X 70 29 99 χ2 = 22.717
fully autonomous driving without human drivers. However, each par­
(70.7%) (29.3%) (100.0%) (p = 0.000)
O 180 16 196 ticipant’s overall rate of successful crossing within the VR experiment
(91.8%) (8.2%) (100.0%) did not significantly affect autonomous driving trust. The effects of other
personal characteristics other than driving experience were also found
n = 884.

9
Y. Joo et al.
to be insignificant. Both models had acceptable levels of overall per­
formance (R2 = 0.271, 0.270) and model fit (p = 0.019, 0.016).
5. Discussion
Several findings regarding the relationships between the absence/
presence of a median, street crossing safety amidst AV platoons, and
pedestrians’ trust toward autonomous driving were obtained from the
analysis results. The suggested effect of the median on safety was
directly examined, while its effect on trust was inferred by reviewing the
chain of relationships where safety acts as the link. Unlike previous AV-
pedestrian studies that have mainly only focused on safety perception,
safety performance measures such as the occurrence of pedestrian
crossing behavior and whether any collisions occurred during the pro­
cedure were also examined when addressing street crossing safety.
With regards to safety, the median was found to be statistically
insignificant in affecting perceived safety but significant in increasing
the participant’s intention and attempt in crossing the street and
lowering the frequency of collisions, even when controlling for platoon
speed and gap. Accordingly, though the median may not influence safety
perception, in practice, it could contribute to creating an effectively safe
walking environment by providing a certain degree of affordance for
crossing the street without colliding with AVs. This complies with pre­
vious studies that, albeit regarding conventional vehicles, support the
median’s effect by having found the median to be associated with lower
numbers of pedestrian accidents (Mako and Szakonyi, 2016; Kang,
2019), or that pedestrians are more likely to accept gaps within a shorter
waiting time when a median is present than when absent (Zhao et al.,
2019). Furthermore, the fact that the median does not affect safety
perceptions but does so for the safety-related performances could be
further interpreted that the affordance to cross the street is formed or
detected separately from the perception of its safety. While a street with a
median might not feel particularly safer, it could nevertheless be judged
as crossable owing to the median’s presence. The pedestrian’s crossing
decision may be seen as a behavioral response not only to the perceived
safety but also to the detected affordance.
Yet still, there is a possibility that the insignificance of the median on
safety perception may have occurred incidentally because of the VR
scenarios being over-compressed and subject to an imbalance issue by
the random orthogonal design (cf. Table 2). For instance, both the sce­
narios perceived as most safe (number 2) and unsafe (number 3) were
coupled by chance with the absence of the median, which in turn is the
minority condition (only three out of nine scenarios and thereby rela­
tively susceptible to each one’s influence), so the effect of the median’s
absence might have been canceled out or covered up by the two extreme
scenarios. Additionally, the size, shape, or design of the median may also
induce changes in safety perceptions. Medians that are, for example,
wider or have protruding bottleneck shapes in certain areas, and thus
may further reduce the width of the road and pedestrians’ exposure
time, might be able to provide a higher sense of security for pedestrians.
While still speculative, testing either with different modeling of medians
or with scenarios composed of a different combination of crossing con­
ditions with less imbalance might reveal further relationships between
the median and perceived street crossing safety.
Meanwhile, the results on crossing safety performance seem to
further indicate that, while derived from data across all nine scenarios,
the median has an effect in particular when AV platoons are driving
aggressively, i.e., either with high platoon speeds or small gaps between
the platoons. Consequently, this may be interpreted in a reverse sense
that because of the median, the safety of pedestrians crossing the street
can still be ensured in terms of its substantive performances even if the
AV platoons drive at high speeds or with smaller gaps. Medians could be
seen as having the advantage of enabling faster speeds and smaller gaps
of AVs while still preventing collisions and thus improving pedestrian
crossing safety. Therefore, although medians may, in a sense, take away
road space from vehicles to create a better walking environment for
10
Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
pedestrians, it could paradoxically still help promote traffic flow, thus
suggesting it a win–win option for both pedestrians and AVs.
As for the participants’ overall expected safety on autonomous
driving, only the perceptual aspect of street crossing safety was found to
have an effect—but unlike other crossing conditions such as platoon
speed or gap between platoons, the median, as was discussed above,
does not have a significant effect on safety perception. Hence, it appears
that while medians might not have any negative effects, neither does it
assist in enhancing pedestrians’ trust in AVs or their related technology.
Such results seem to indicate that to develop trust toward autonomous
driving, reducing uncertainty concerning the actual subject of trust (the
AVs and their platooning methods, i.e., speed and gap) is more effective
than reducing uncertainty by modifying the surrounding environment
(the presence/absence of a median). Meanwhile, overall trust toward
autonomous driving itself was found to be moderately to fairly high,
especially when asked about the specific situation of crossing the street
with platoons of AVs. This is somewhat different from an online survey
result reported by Brar and Caulfield (2017), where the respondents
were generally neutral toward AVs when asked a highly similar question
on their perceptions but were not given any other treatment or input
related to AVs in the survey. This may be another example where re­
spondents that have experience with AVs tend to evaluate their trust in
them more positively than their counterparts (Das, 2021; Penmetsa
et al., 2019) because the participants in this study had also answered
after experiencing AVs, albeit via VR simulation. Actual verification up
to that point is unavailable through the current study since it lacks the
“pre-” part of the data for a precise pre-post comparison, but it seems
that interaction with AVs through VR methods could also work in
decreasing uncertainty toward autonomous driving.
Regarding the study’s limitations, the following should be noted.
First, given its not yet fully determined state for immediate application,
features related to AV-pedestrian interactions were excluded when
modeling the AVs in VR. This may be unrealistic compared to future
actual pedestrian experiences with AVs, where those features would
assist in mitigating the risk of traffic accidents. Still, it can be argued that
the current study’s results, where the significance of the role of medians
was identified even under crossing conditions without such risk-
mitigating features, may, in turn, suggest the robustness of the me­
dian’s safety effects. Second, the results may be subject to a bias arising
from the randomness of the orthogonal design. That is, which nine of the
total 36 possible scenarios were randomly selected might affect the
experiment results. Repeated testing of the relationships between the
variables with more scenarios, such as from higher resolution orthog­
onal designs with less imbalance problems to all possible scenarios,
could resolve the problem in the future. Third, participants were mostly
limited to general adults in their 20 s and 30 s, and thus the results may
not be the same for more vulnerable pedestrians such as children, people
living with disabilities, or older adults. Since the physical abilities
related to crossing decisions or results are different for the latter group
and the factors determining their safety perception may also be so,
additional research would be needed for a broader application of the
current study’s implications. Lastly, tests on the degree of realism and
simulator sickness were inadvertently omitted when conducting the
experiment. While both are generally found not to be a problem in either
the validity or safety of VR simulation experiments (e.g., Jayaraman
et al., 2019; Velasco et al., 2019), a direct measurement of both within
the current study would have been preferable.
6. Conclusion
With the introduction of AVs, views that the number of lanes and
individual lane width will both be reduced in the near future are being
raised. Accordingly, thoughts on how to use this spare road space to
organize and design future urban streets and traffic become necessary.
In this situation, our findings demonstrate that medians can be an
effective alternative to ensuring the safe crossing of pedestrians in future
Y. Joo et al.
streets where AVs have come into wide use while at the same time still
supporting the smooth flow of such AVs.
Nonetheless, the need for additional research on other related sub­
jects still follows. For example, besides the median’s effects, discussions
envisioning the appropriate design and operation modes of the median
would be another requirement for the planning field. Though at first,
medians, as applied in this study, would likely be separated in height
from the surface of the road for both safety and psychological comfort,
this may in cases hinder the free movement of AVs. As autonomous
driving technology develops further and, consequently, the safety of and
trust in AVs become more secure, medians without height differences
could also become feasible. Eventually, even more flexible forms such as
safety islands or pick-up/drop-off zones appearing mid-street tempo­
rarily or on demand may possibly emerge as well (NACTO, 2017).
Likewise, the appropriateness of the median’s form and management
strategy is not fixed but can change depending on the development of
AVs and their resultant safety and pedestrian trust, and such would need
to be elaborated.
Continued examination and identification of the effects and
strengths/weaknesses of other possible alternatives than medians, and
further comparison between the alternatives (including the median),
would also be important. This evidence would not only provide help in
selecting the most optimal/beneficial option in a given context of the
street environment, especially when the absolute area of the spare road
space is limited as with the situation assumed in this study, but also
provide further criteria and insight in designating more than one option
at multiple parts of a street where the street is wider than assumed in this
study and thus capable of accommodating a mixture of several alter­
natives. Additional work on such subjects would further contribute to
establishing the grounds for future urban, transportation planning and
street design efforts in response to the upcoming autonomous driving
era.
Role of the funding source.
The funder had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis,
interpretation, manuscript writing, or the decision to submit.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Youngha Joo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Data curation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing. Seung-Nam Kim: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources,
Supervision, Funding acquisition, Validation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing. Baek-Chan Kim: Methodology, Investiga­
tion, Data curation, Visualization, Writing - original draft. Gi-Hyoug
Cho: Conceptualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition,
Writing - review & editing. Jeongseob Kim: Conceptualization, Writing
- review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
The data that has been used is confidential.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Tech­
nology (2021R1C1C1013336). This research was also supported by the
Chung-Ang University Research Grants in 2021. The authors thank the
anonymous reviewers for their excellent suggestions for improving the
manuscript.
11
Accident Analysis and Prevention 188 (2023) 107092
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