Enhancing Driver Awareness of Vulnerable Road Users through In-Vehicle Auditory Signals

In recent years, increased amount of information generated by advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) has diversified the way of presenting it to the drivers. One of them is audio signals to enhance driver awareness and aid the decision-making process. However, conventional audio signals are often too simple, i.e., beep sound, or explanatory, verbal explanations, which conveys little information or too slow. This warrants additional research on intuitive ways to present information to the drivers. This study focuses on the design and evaluation of in-vehicle auditory signals for improving the driver awareness of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians or cyclists. A number of auditory signals are implemented ranging from simple beep sound to gradual warning sound and evaluated on a real-world driving simulator to investigate, which can convey information effectively without distracting the driver. The results of the experiment showed that our auditory signal system had a significant impact on driving behavior.