For a better (simulated) world: considerations for VR in external communication research

In the emerging research field of external communication of autonomous vehicles with vulnerable road users (e.g. pedestrians), there is no agreed upon set of methods to design and evaluate concepts. The approaches vary from pure paper-based design studies over Virtual or Augmented Reality simulation to real-world testing of early prototypes. While there are benefits to each of these approaches, the most promising concept is considered to be the virtual reality (VR) approach since it allows for a quick, realistic and safe evaluation of new designs and concepts. A literature review of existing concepts for vehicle-pedestrian communication revealed that only 7 publications and preprints between 2014 and 2019 used VR in their research. We evaluated each based on criteria relevant for pedestrian crossing decisions and factors important for conducting experiments. Our results show relevant considerations when implementing a VR simulator for external communication research and conducting studies in this field.