Co-Presence in a Shared Virtual Environment (SVE): A Case Study of Highway Work Zone Construction

Given the high rate of motor vehicle fatalities in work zones in the U.S., this study proposes the use of a virtual reality (VR) as a tool for studying safety in construction work zones. This testing environment makes possible to oversee the critical safety situations and attenuate the necessary future design adjustments. Besides, VR application in this area of study can revolutionize the traditional training techniques. Remarkably, with the recent technological advances, there is an opportunity to create rich and high quality shared virtual environments (SVEs) in which users can actively interact with one another. This study reports on an experiment in that a virtual highway construction zone has been used as a platform for investigating the real-time interaction between two participants: a driver and a construction worker. The study aims at 1) investigating the impact of experiment design and technology on participants’ SVE experience; 2) suggesting a framework for designing SVEs with higher levels of presence and co-presence; 3) assessing the viability of SVE’s as a research tool in construction and safety domain.