Virtual reality and traffic incident management

Deakin University and the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads have completed the iMOVE project, Can immersive reality improve traffic incident management?

Objectives

The project aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of untethered Virtual Reality Environments (VRE) in training and developing first responders and multi-agency teams for traffic incident management within Queensland. It tackled this objective in the following ways:

• Compare VRE-based training to traditional in-field methods;
• Identify the benefits, drawbacks, and practical applications of VRE in this context; and
• Provide recommendations to TMR to consider whether VRE represents a potential training and development tool in this context.

Literature review

The literature review found that virtual reality (VR) technology had recently improved through standalone, head-mounted displays which offered relatively high-pixel density, a faster refresh rate, and a wide field of view. These improvements boosted VR hardware’s accessibility, usability, and ergonomics. VR technology allows users to be immersed into training scenarios or real-world environments that would otherwise be costly, difficult, or impossible to access.

Despite these drawcards, VR’s challenges include:

• Risks of users experiencing cybersickness, such as nausea, headache, and disorientation;
• High up-front costs to buy the hardware and develop software; and
• Significant ongoing costs to continually update content.

The literature review showed that VR had been used for diverse safety and transport-related training scenarios, but not to train for inter-agency traffic incident response and incident management training.

Methodology

The project developed through five phases:

• Inception and planning to develop the plan and protocols for communication between project partners;
• Literature review of the current practices in traffic incident response and management, VR training and current application in relevant training scenarios ;
• Experimental VR prototype development to help assess VR’s benefits, disadvantages, and usefulness for training and developing capability in traffic incident management context;
• Experimental design for incident response training including scenario development, interview and survey design;
• Experiments and data analysis, including undertaking in-field and VR training scenarios and data collection from participants. The project used a range of statistical methods, such as mixed design ANOVAs, to evaluate VR training’s effectiveness in comparison to the in-field training.

The project’s contribution to scholarly research stems from its two-pronged experimental design, comprising in-field and VR training. The in-field scenario was the baseline condition, or control group, while VR training was the treatment condition – the experiment group.

To collect data during in-field training, the researchers used two 360-degree video cameras to capture imagery and audio, including from the CB radio, the vehicles and communications tent.

Two in-field training scenarios were performed over two days with 25 participants. The first scenario simulated two vehicles that had crashed in a regional area, which required occupant extrication.

The second scenario simulated a passenger bus that had taken evasive action to avoid hitting an insecure load and subsequently hit a guardrail causing a chemical spill.

Next, the study developed VR training and captured video and audio with 360-degree video. In total there were19 participants. The study used Meta Quest 2 VR headsets.

Participants reviewed short 360-degree videos that were digitally annotated to emphasise critical aspects of the traffic incident response process. The VR interfaces provided point and click interaction allowing participants to progress the training at a suitable pace. Audio from the live exercises and synthesized narration were integrated into the 360-degree videos to create a realistic VR training experience.

For both the in-field and VR scenarios, participants completed pre- and post-surveys, then group interviews were conducted with members of the research team. The surveys measured their work-specific self-efficacy and motivation. Key post-survey measures focused on participants’ motivation, situational interest, situational cognitive engagement, subjective reactions to the exercise, cognitive load, and preferred training duration. The group discussions captured participants’ perceptions about the exercise, such as benefits, limitations, potential applications, and suggested improvements.

Conclusions

• “The results suggest that both VR and in-field training provide similar levels of self-efficacy that is, building similar levels of confidence in their ability to deal with traffic incident management and mental .
• “VR training provided more time efficient training as it was able to be delivered in 25 minutes per exercise compared with in-field of 45 minutes.”
• “Interviews suggested there was benefit in CB radio communication combined with 360-degree video helped improve understanding to multi-agency roles, responsibilities and actions.”

Recommendations

• VR training is expected to provide benefits to those with limited experience as a low-cost alternative to in-field training exercises
• VR training provides a low-cost, portable solution that can provide high fidelity simulated in-field training for those who require just-in-time training

Download

Click the button below to download a copy of the academic paper, Virtual Reality Training for Multi-Agency Traffic Incident Management.