Are shared streets acceptable to pedestrians and drivers? Evidence from Virtual Reality experiments

While the development of cities tends to focus on improving traffic mobility, it has gradually neglected people’s demand for safety and comfort walking on the streets. To address this problem, shared streets that can integrate traditional street life and traffic mobility are getting more attention as pedestrian-friendly development. In order to measure the performance of shared streets, it is essential to identify how people feel when driving and walking around. However, investigating the various factors that influence the real world is not straightforward because of cost, time-consuming, and safety problems. Virtual reality and the Human-in-the-loop (HITL) have become valuable tools for conducting experiments without compromising them. The experiments are performed on both pedestrians’ and drivers’ sides. The three shared street layouts in a virtual environment are designed according to Europe’s real shared street cases. To evaluate shared street effects, questions in five aspects: amenity, walking or driving experience, safety, economy or priority, and environmental perception are asked to participants, respectively. MPR, EWM, and Fuzzy Comprehension Evaluation methods are used to assess the performance. The result revealed that different groups of people have different sensitivity and preferences for each evaluation criteria. However, the results of the comprehensive evalutation showed that scenario C with the largest isolation measurement is preferable in both pedestrian and driver’s groups based on shared street design elements. The city planners can get help from this shared street analysis, where the new design and layout could be tested in advance.