Alert Modalities in Connected and Smart Work Zones to Enhance Workers’ Safety From Traffic Accidents Using Virtual Reality (VR) Experiments

Connected and Smart Work Zones (CSWZ) represent the future of work zones, utilizing technology to enhance safety, efficiency, and productivity among workers. However, research on leveraging technologies to communicate hazards and systematically evaluate different alert modalities to enhance safety remains limited. Assessing and understanding such hazards from the worker’s perspective is highly challenging, making virtual reality (VR) a promising solution that provides flexibility in assessing complex and influencing factors. In this paper, a set of 12 VR evaluation tasks for alert technology-assisted work zones are developed, encompassing various attributes by applying orthogonal design principles. Participants are exposed to these VR evaluation tasks, generating a dataset comprising 222 distinct scenarios. A proximity-based threshold is used to quantify a critical event based on worker and vehicle interaction orientations. The impact of different alert modalities (no alert, centralized, and personalized alert systems) on critical safety outcomes (reaction time and reaching safe region) using discrete choice modelling framework and kinematic behavior (temporal variation of evasive speed and relative distance) are comprehensively evaluated. The personalized alert consistently demonstrated its effectiveness by facilitating faster reactions and more effective evasive actions, significantly improving safety outcomes through a three-phase sequential motion pattern of acceleration, speed maintenance, and deceleration. This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different alert systems, offering valuable insights for mitigating risks associated with intruding vehicles, especially in scenarios involving high vehicle speeds and worker involvement levels.