Driver Behaviors at Level Crossings from Fixed and Moving Driving Simulators

Abstract

Many studies were conducted to evaluate safety at railway crossings equipped with different types of warning devices. In this study, a desktop driving simulator (fixed simulator) and an advanced simulator (moving simulator) were used to identify the impacts of two warning devices namely stop sign and in-vehicle audio warning on alerting drivers at railway crossings. Although these high-end technologies have been widely used for safety evaluation in many areas, there is a little research on their application and comparison at railway crossings. This paper reports the results of a comparison of the two simulators. As a preliminary result, vehicle speeds at given distance/time were analyzed. The results showed that when the warning started, drivers in the fixed simulator were slower than those in the moving simulator in responding. However, after four seconds of warning, the speed from both simulators showed statistically identical results. In summary, the different properties of the simulator lead drivers to react to warnings differently.