The use of micromobility riding simulators in road safety research: a systematic review

Abstract

Collecting real-world and field data involves numerous challenges due to ethical, privacy, and safety concerns. Consequently, micromobility riding simulators, such as, bicycle and e-scooters simulators, offer valuable means to assess the safety of vulnerable road users in controlled environments. This systematic review examines previous studies that used riding simulators, e.g., bicycle simulators, to evaluate the safety of vulnerable road users. It provides a comprehensive overview of riding simulators in road safety research by summarizing sample characteristics, experimental conditions, collected data, measurement parameters, analysis methods, and other key factors such as simulator sickness. Approximately 73% of the studies were conducted within the past five years and more than half of the studies were conducted in the USA. There is a general rise in riding simulators, particularly bicycle simulators, in studying safety. However, using e-scooter simulators and other micromobility simulators are still in the development or at early stage. Riding simulators are mostly used to evaluate on-road safety (while interacting with vehicles). They are not comprehensively used to evaluate sidewalk safety while interacting with pedestrians or other micromobility modes. Common drawbacks of simulator-based studies include potential data bias due to small, unrepresentative samples, controlled experimental settings, and concerns regarding the validity and fidelity of the simulators. Despite the key limitations, riding simulators offer empirical support on data collection for evaluating safety. However, their effectiveness and validity need to be further enhanced.