Estimating and Comparing Response Times in Traditional and Connected Environments

Abstract

Response time (RT) is a critical human factor that influences traffic flow characteristics and traffic safety, and is governed by drivers’ decision-making behavior. Unlike the traditional environment (TE), the connected environment (CE) provides information assistance to drivers. This in-vehicle informed environment can influence drivers’ decision-making and thereby their RTs. Therefore, to ascertain the impact of CE on RT, this study develops RT estimation methodologies for TE (RTEM-TE) and CE (RTEM-CE), using vehicle trajectory data. Because of the intra-lingual inconsistency among traffic engineers, modelers, and psychologists in the usage of the term RT, this study also provides a ubiquitous definition of RT that can be used in a wide range of applications. Both RTEM-TE and RTEM-CE are built on the fundamental stimulus–response relationship, and they utilize the wavelet-based energy distribution of time series of speeds to detect the stimulus–response points. These methodologies are rigorously examined for their efficiency and accuracy using noise-free and noisy synthetic data, and driving simulator data. Analysis results demonstrate the excellent performance of both the methodologies. Moreover, the analysis shows that the mean RT in CE is longer than the mean RT in TE.