Driver braking behavior analysis to improve autonomous emergency braking systems in typical Chinese vehicle-bicycle conflicts

Bicycling is one of the fundamental modes of transportation especially in developing countries. Because of the lack of effective protection for bicyclists, vehicle-bicycle (V-B) accident has become a primary contributor to traffic fatalities. Although AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking) systems have been developed to avoid or mitigate collisions, they need to be further adapted in various conflict situations. This paper analyzes the driver's braking behavior in typical V-B conflicts of China to improve the performance of Bicyclist-AEB systems. Naturalistic driving data were collected, from which the top three scenarios of V-B accidents in China were extracted, including SCR (a bicycle crossing the road from right while a car is driving straight), SCL (a bicycle crossing the road from left while a car is driving straight) and SSR (a bicycle swerving in front of the car from right while a car is driving straight). For safety and data reliability, a driving simulator was employed to reconstruct these three scenarios and some 25 licensed drivers were recruited for braking behavior analysis. Results revealed that driver's braking behavior was significantly influenced by V-B conflict types. Pre-decelerating behaviors were found in SCL and SSR conflicts, whereas in SCR the subjects were less vigilant. The brake reaction time and brake severity in lateral V-B conflicts (SCR and SCL) was shorter and higher than that in longitudinal conflicts (SSR). The findings improve their applications in the Bicyclist-AEB and test protocol enactment to enhance the performance of Bicyclist-AEB systems in mixed traffic situations especially for developing countries.