A mixed-methods approach to understanding narrow passage behaviours

Abstract

Narrow passage interactions are unregulated interactions at road narrowings in which two opposing vehicles cannot both pass through simultaneously. Instead, some informal agreement must be reached between the drivers as to which vehicle will pass through first and which will wait. Existing research into narrow passage interactions is typically focused on either simplistic approaches where the vehicle arriving at their entrance to the narrowing always proceeds first, or focused on the forms of communication required to reach the necessary agreement and how this may translate to future situations where one of the vehicles is autonomously controlled. There appears to be little research into how heterogeneity in wider driver behaviour, vehicle types, and situational/environmental factors relating to the layout of the narrowing itself result in the diversity of interactions and behaviours that can be observed in reality. It is clear therefore that the decision-making processes undertaken by drivers approaching narrow passages are more complex than currently reflected in existing models.

To rectify this issue, this paper describes a mixed-methods approach for narrow passage research, incorporating a questionnaire, on-road experiment, and driving simulator study. Using this integrated mixed-methods framework, it is shown that each research phase interacts and complements the other components of the research framework, such that the acknowledged weaknesses of each individual methodology are compensated by the other phases. Through highlighting the key findings of each research phase and showing how they were utilised throughout the project to widen the number of factors found to influence narrow passage decision-making, and consequently propose a new theoretical model for narrow passage cognition and behaviour that better reflects observed behaviours, it is argued that the described research methodology better addresses the complexities of cognitive research than a single approach.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Peter Refaat Salib Youssef: orcid.org/0000-0001-6755-329X

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