Pedestrian Behavior in Japan and Germany: A Review

The prediction of pedestrian behavior remains a major objective for the development of autonomous vehicles. Pedestrians do not merely represent the most vulnerable traffic participants, but are also a challenge in the prediction process, since their behavior entails a large number of options for possible paths, velocities, and motions. In addition, autonomous vehicles should be able to operate safely in different countries, and thus the incorporation of cultural differences in the training and evaluation of the relevant AI systems is required. This paper provides the first review of Japanese and German pedestrians' behavior in urban traffic. In particular, cultural behavior differences of pedestrians in risk avoidance, compliance, gap acceptance, and walking velocity together with different environmental factors like pedestrian facilities in both countries are addressed.