A comparative driving safety study of mountainous expressway individual tunnel and tunnel group based on eye gaze behavior

The traffic environment of a tunnel group is more complex than that of a single tunnel, which increases the driving risk. The eye gaze behavior of drivers can be used to evaluate driving safety and comfort. To analyze the fixation characteristics of drivers in a single tunnel and tunnel group of mountainous expressways, an actual vehicle test is conducted. The test area has a total length of 160 km and 38 tunnels, including 8 tunnel groups and 16 single tunnels. In the test, the difference in the gaze time of five drivers between single tunnels and tunnel groups is compared. The k-means method is used to cluster driver’s gaze points dynamically. Based on the Markov theory, the attributes related to gaze transfer are obtained. The results show that when tunnels are of short or medium length, there is no significant difference in the gaze time and gaze point transfer between the tunnel group and a single tunnel. In contrast, when tunnels have long or extra-long length, the repeated fixation probability and the two-step transition probability of looking back of a driver in a tunnel group are higher than those in a single tunnel. The design and management method of a single tunnel cannot be directly used, especially for extra-long tunnels located at the back of a tunnel group with a long upstream tunnel length and a short interval distance from the upstream tunnel. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the design and management methods of tunnel groups.