Influencing Factors Of Drivers’ Hazard Perception Ability Under Plateau Environment

China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area is vast and has a large population.In recent years,with the rapid development of transportation infrastructure construction,plateau traffic accidents have occurred frequently,and the traffic driving safety is not optimistic.The driver’s hazard perception ability is closely related to traffic driving safety.If the driver’s hazard perception ability is improved,the traffic accident rate in plateau area will decrease accordingly.However,the driver’s vision and reaction characteristics in plateau area with low pressure and hypoxia conditions are significantly different from those in plain area.As a result,the drivers in plateau areas may collect incomplete information and make wrong judgement,even leading to operational errors when facing traffic hazards.The study of influencing factors of driver’s hazard perception in plateau areas is thus of great significance.In this paper,driver’s visual recognition,reaction and vehicle operation characteristics in different plateau environments when facing traffic hazards are analyzed through simulation tests and appropriate parameters are selected to evaluate driver’s hazard perception ability comprehensively.At first,based on the basic theory of driver’s hazard perception,the driver’s hazard perception process is divided into three stages: visual recognition,judgment and decision-making,and driving manipulation.Besides,the changes of driver’s psychological status in plateau environment were analyzed and the key factors that affect driver’s hazard perception ability were put forward: the altitude,driving experience and acclimation period.Secondly,nine representative traffic hazards in plateau environment were selected via investigation and these traffic hazards were established by UC-WIN / RAOD driving simulation software.Then one hazard which has lower risk and frequency was excluded through comprehensive fuzzy evaluation based on the questionnaire survey.Driving simulation test is carried out in Nanjing(10m),Linzhi(2995m avove sea level),Lhasa(3650m above sea level),Naqu(4460m above sea level)and Yanghu Scenic Area(4998m above sea level).The driver’s eye movement data and vehicle’s operational data were recorded through eye trackers and simulation software.172 effective samples were collected.Again,on the basis of driver’s response time data,it is found that there was a significant difference between the driver’s hazard perception ability in plain environment and in plateau environment.Furthermore,the results reveal that the driver’s hazard perception ability decreases with the altitude while increases with the driving experience and acclimation period.Besides,taking the maximum steering wheel angle data and the standard deviation of speed data as the evaluation indicators,it is found that the vehicle’s operational stability decreases with the altitude and increases with the driving experience and acclimation period,indicating that driver has lower hazard perception ability under hypoxic conditions in plateau environment.Then,on the basis of driver’s eye movement data,driver’s visual search patterns were analyzed.The statistics show that the altitude,driving experience and acclimation period can affect the driver’s cognitive speed、degree and scope.From the perspective of visual recognition characteristics,the causes of the differences in the drivers’ hazard perception ability are further clarified.Finally,on the basis of statistics,six parameters were selected to establish the evaluation index system about drivers’ hazard perception ability in plateau environment.Due to the strong correlation between the parameters,the weighting method of CRITIC was used to determine the weight coefficient.The linear evaluation model and Topsis model were applied to get the final comprehensive evaluation value and the two evaluation results are highly similar.The accuracy of the two evaluation models was verified by contrast driver’s evaluation value with the altitudes.In this paper,by analyzing the influencing factors of drivers’ hazard perception ability in plateau environment,combined with the drivers’ visual recognition characteristics and the vehicle’s operational characteristics when facing traffic hazards,the comprehensive evaluation model of driver’s hazard perception ability in plateau environment is established.The research results play a crucial role in analyzing the traffic accident causal factors and reducing traffic accident rate in plateau environment.At the same time,it also offers a method for screening drivers with significantly weaker risk perception ability,which is significant to improving the traffic safety in plateau environment.