Virtually the same? Analysing pedestrian behaviour by means of virtual reality

Thanks to technological advancements, virtual reality has become increasingly flexible and affordable, resulting in a growing number of user studies conducted in virtual environments. Pedestrian simulators, visualizing traffic scenarios from a pedestrians’ perspective, have thereby emerged as a powerful tool in traffic safety research. However, while both the interest in this technology and the concern for vulnerable road users is high, a systematic overview of research employing pedestrian simulators has not been provided so far. The present literature survey is based on 87 studies published during the past decade, investigating pedestrian behaviour by means of virtual traffic scenarios. Results were categorized according to the research question, technical setup, experimental task, and participant sample. Identifying trends and gaps in knowledge and highlighting differences between methodological approaches, this work serves as an assessment of the current state and a baseline from which to develop future research questions. It aims to demonstrate both opportunities and challenges of this relatively new methodology. Thereby, it is hoped to foster the awareness of existing limitations, support the reasonable interpretation of the available data, and guide pedestrian research towards reliable and generalizable insights enhancing pedestrian mobility, comfort, and safety.