The Texas Transportation Institute's Center for Transportation Safety is home to a fully interactive driving simulator, which allows participants to navigate a real vehicle through a realistic computer- generated driving environment. The simulator is integrated with pedestrian-related data to create PedSim to study how pedestrians interact in the roadway environment. A current study tests sidewalk environments for pedestrian safety. Intersections are of particular interest, so that researchers can better understand what their decisions are, learn more about their gap acceptance and how to signalize for the visually impaired. The research team is also conducting focus groups with parents of elementary school students to assess their perceptions of safety of the pedestrian environment in and around the school.
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