Intercultural Analyses of Time-to-Collision in Vehicle-Pedestrian Conflict on an Urban Midblock Crosswalk

In traffic conflict techniques, time-to-collision (TTC) is suggested to be a surrogate measure of conflict severity. In order to address the differences in conflict situation between driving cultures, field traffic data have been collected by video recording and image processing at urban midblock crosswalks both in Beijing, China, and Munich, Germany. Focusing on the vehicle-pedestrian (VEH-PED) conflict, by identification of field observation, conflict situation, and TTC calculation, a trajectory-based data matrix is created for understanding the entire conflict process. TTC distribution and relationships between TTC and PED/VEH-based parameters are investigated with intercultural comparison. Special cases in China, where traffic noncompliance is common, are also studied as a complement to normal VEH-PED conflicts. The research will hopefully lay the groundwork in the target of providing advanced driver assistance system adaptation databases in the future.