In this project, the perception of distance and the degree of immersion in a game, with two different visualisation techniques, have been evaluated. A bicycle simulator was used, and the game has been tested in a non-immersive virtual reality, by projecting the game on a screen, and using an immersive virtual reality by Oculus Rift. The study provides a preliminary investigation that focuses on how humans can perceive the distance, an overview of the term immersion and how to quantify this component.Regarding the study of the perception of distance, to subjects who have tested the game has been asked their perceptions of distance with respect to a given object. The immersion was studied and evaluated using a questionnaire given to each subject.The results showed an underestimation of distance in both the visualisation of the game, precisely a greater underestimation respect to real distance when the screen was used was found.The degree of immersion did not detect large differences between the two visualisation techniques.

Roughly 50,000 people are injured in bicycle collisions with motor vehicles each year. The Hank Bicycle Simulator provides a virtual environment to study and reduce this tragic loss by safely investigating the interaction of bicycle riders and traffic, particularly for bicyclists crossing streets. The bicycle simulator design focuses on the bicycle and rider inertia, the predominant dynamic element for riders moving from a stopped position. The Hank Bicycle Simulator’s flywheel provides instantaneous inertial response while a servomotor provides simulated wind resistance to pedaling. This work describes the simulator design and a validation experiment that compares the simulator performance to theoretical predictions. The Hank Bicycle Simulator achieved initial acceleration with less than 0.20% error at realistic rider weights. The observed terminal velocity achieved less than 3.75%, with smaller errors for heavier riders. This allows the rider to cross a street with about a 60 ms time difference between the simulator and a real-life rider pedaling at a constant propulsive force. The Hank Bicycle Simulator was also validated through various physical experiments measuring the system inertia, the time delay of the electrical components, and the overall system performance. Such careful system validation for a mechanical feedback system is relatively rare in simulation research and is unique among previous reports of bicycle simulators.

This feasibility study reports on the first experimental experiences with the BASt bicycle simulator. Since older cyclists represent an important target group in road safety due to their increased vulnerability, both cyclists aged 65 and over (experimental group: EG) and, by way of comparison, middle-aged test subjects aged 25--50 (cont.rol group: CG) were included in the study. The study aims to gain initial insights into the prerequisites, possibilities and limitations for using the bicycle simulator to observe cycling behaviour. In addition to the actua1 test ride the three preceding pra.ctice rides were also evaluated. A comparable study with older adults has already been conducted with the BASt car simulator.

The aim of the research project RADimFOKUS was to develop and evaluate a cyclist waming system (CWS) prototype in order to prevent safety critical events (SCEs), such as accidents, for the specifically vulnerable group of cyclists and, in turn, contributing to an enhanced traffic safety for this sustainable and healthy mode of transport. The basic idea of the system was to warn cyclists in case a SCE is detected. Although research about CWS is rather scarce, :first evaluations of such systems are promising [1]. Considering actual developments and trends, the CWS detects SCEs based on connected traffic information and is in a fust step intended for the implementation in electrified bicycles (i.e. pedelecs), where power supply is provided by the integrated battery. In the scope of the project, we performed the following 3 stages, which are described in the current contribution: (1) Development of the waming model and user interface for the CWS prototype, (2) Development of a bicycle simulator and implementation of the CWS interface for user studies, and (3) First evaluation of the CWS prototype in the scope of a bicycle simulator user study.

This thesis focuses on the development and utilization of a virtual reality bicycle simulator for the purposes of traffic safety research. The bicycle simulator is developed using a virtual reality head mounted display (HMD) and commercially available hardware and software in the Unity framework. An experiment was conducted by exposing 24 participants to select scenarios in a virtual environment that were constructed to imitate a real-world location in Lund, Sweden. Observing the effects in term of immersion and cybersickness in relation to development. Recordings from drones were used to capture real life traffic from the location that were tracked and implemented into Unity for increased realism. The participants answered questionnaires incorporating VRSQ: Virtual reality sickness questionnaire and SPES: The spatial presence experience scale. The results indicate that the induced cybersickness is similar to, but slightly lower than that of average mean simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ) results. SPES showed generally positive results, average answer being 3.6 on a scale from 1-5.