Literature Review  ·  2025

Analyzing the Behaviors of Pedestrians and Cyclists in Interactions with Autonomous Systems Using Controlled Experiments: A Literature Review

Published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour

Danya Li1 · Wencan Mao2 · Francisco C. Pereira1 ·  Yu Xiao3 · Xiang Su4 · Rico Krueger1

1 DTU, Denmark    2 NII, Japan    3 Aalto University, Finland    4 University of Helsinki, Finland

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Overview

Urban transportation is set to undergo a profound transformation with the advent of autonomous systems such as autonomous vehicles🚗, automated shuttles🚌, and sidewalk delivery robots🤖. To promote safe, sustainable, and inclusive urban mobility, understanding and predicting the behaviors of pedestrians🚶 and cyclists🚴 when they interact with autonomous systems becomes crucial.

Through a comprehensive review of the literature spanning 2014 to 2023, we identify 99 articles that empirically investigate human–autonomous system interactions through controlled experiments. Based on our overview of progress and challenges, we identify five research gaps that future work should address: (1) Experiment scalability: scaling up to multi-user and multi-modal design, (2) Scenario criticality: emphasizing safety-critical VR scenarios, (3) Data diversity: incorporating rich behavioral data from human perspective, (4) Interaction adaptability: embracing continuous real-time interaction, and (5) Generalization: enhancing generalization ability across diverse populations and settings.

Identified research gaps

Identified research gaps

Study Landscape

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Studies reviewed
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Pedestrian studies
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Cyclist / mixed studies
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Distinct methods
Data Collection Method
Scenario Setup Type
Behavioral Model Family

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Cite This Paper

@article{li2025analyzing,
  title   = {Analyzing the Behaviors of Pedestrians and Cyclists in Interactions
             with Autonomous Systems Using Controlled Experiments: A Literature Review},
  author  = {Li, Danya and Mao, Wencan and Pereira, Francisco C. and
             Xiao, Yu and Su, Xiang and Krueger, Rico},
  journal = {Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour},
  year    = {2025},
}