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In alignment with the European Union’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate road fatalities by 2050, leveraging technological advancements becomes crucial for addressing the challenges of vulnerable road users (VRUs), and for mitigating the impact of human error. Despite increasing scholarly interest in applications of extended reality (XR), a research gap persists, particularly in the role of XR in transportation safety. Therefore, the aim of the study was to fill this gap through a systematic literature review to evaluate comprehensively the potential scope and practical applicability of XR technologies in enhancing the safety of VRUs.

A systematic review was undertaken, following PRISMA guidelines meticulously, in which 80 relevant articles from databases, such as Scopus and Science Direct, were identified and analysed.

The results of the analysis revealed the potential of XR beyond pedestrians and cyclists, and highlighted a lack of research about the impact of XR with regard to the personal traits or abilities of VRUs. The results of a thorough analysis confirmed the potential of XR as a promising solution for an approach to collaborative co-creation in addressing the safety challenges of VRUs. In addition, the integration of eye-tracking with virtual reality emerged as a promising innovation for enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users.

Theoretical implications include enhancing the understanding of applications of XR in VRUs’ safety and providing insights into future research possibilities and methodological approaches. Valuable insights into search strategies and inclusion-exclusion criteria can guide future research methodologies.

Practically, the findings from the study offer insights to assist urban planners and transportation authorities in incorporating XR technologies effectively for VRUs safety. Identifying areas for further development of XR technology could inspire innovation and investment in solutions designed to meet the safety needs of VRUs, such as enhanced visualisation tools and immersive training simulations.

The findings of previous research underscore the vast potential of XR technologies within the built environment, yet their utilisation remains limited in the urban transport sector. The intricacies of urban traffic scenarios pose significant challenges for VRUs, making participation in mobility studies hazardous. Hence, it is crucial to explore the scope of emerging technologies in addressing VRUs issues as a pre-requisite for establishing comprehensive safety measures.

In the construction sector, site excavation is one of the most dangerous and challenging activities. Proper training can be an effective way to mitigate excavation hazards. Virtual reality (VR) has been used as an effective training tool to enhance safety performance in various industries. However, little attention has been paid to the potential of this technology for construction excavation safety training.

This study proposes an immersive VR training system for excavation safety and hazard identification. The proposed VR training system was compared with a health and safety manual via a controlled experiment.

Results based on scores obtained immediately after training indicate that VR training significantly enhanced practical performance, knowledge acquisition and self-efficacy. Results also show that knowledge was retained four weeks after training. In addition, VR training outperformed health and safety manuals regarding knowledge retention.

This study measures the practical performance to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed VR training system. Also, this study compares the VR training system with a traditional training method by measuring knowledge acquisition and retention. The results demonstrate the potential of VR as a training tool for excavation safety and hazards.

The purpose of this study is to identify sustainability assessment indicators of road infrastructure projects by analyzing and synthesizing existing literature, considering that, despite being essential to achieving the sustainable development goals, sustainability performance in road infrastructure projects is a persistent challenge. Therefore, determining how sustainability can be assessed in these projects is crucial, necessitating a systematic review of the sustainability assessment indicators of road infrastructure projects.

Using PRISMA principles, 54 peer-reviewed papers from 2010 to 2022 were retrieved from three search databases (Scopus, Research for Life and Google Scholar) as part of a systematic literature review. Data analysis techniques included both descriptive and content analysis.

The study identified 22 indicators. The results emphasized that the sustainability of road infrastructure projects should consider all three sustainability dimensions to provide development while meeting human needs, preserving the planet Earth and enhancing economic growth. Similarly, indicators should be incorporated from the design phase to implement and attain sustainability successfully.

The outcome of this study will serve as a guide to road infrastructure stakeholders to understand the relevant sustainability indicators to assess the sustainability performance of their projects.

The study’s findings provide the sustainability assessment indicators for roads, which serve as a foundation for developing a sustainability assessment indicator framework for road infrastructure projects. Future research can look at establishing the indicators for the end-of-life phase of the project lifecycle.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to transform the infrastructure, mobility and social well-being paradigms in New Zealand (NZ) amid its unprecedented population and road safety challenges. But, public acceptance, co-evolution of regulations and AV technology based on interpersonal and institutional trust perspectives pose significant challenges. Previous theories and models need to be more comprehensive to address trust influencing autonomous driving (AD) factors in natural settings. Therefore, this study aims to find key AD factors corresponding to the chain of human-machine interaction (HMI) events happening in real time and formulate a guiding framework for the successful deployment of AVs in NZ.

This study utilized a comprehensive literature review complemented by an AV users’ study with 15 participants. AV driving sprints were conducted on low, medium and high-density roads in Auckland, followed by 15 ideation workshops to gather data about the users’ observations, feelings and attitudes towards the AVs during HMI.

This research study determined nine essential trust-influencing AD determinants in HMI and legal readiness domains. These AD determinants were analyzed, corresponding to eight AV events in three phases. Subsequently, a guiding framework was developed based on these factors, i.e. human-machine interaction autonomous driving events relationship identification framework (HMI-ADERIF) for the deployment of AVs in New Zealand.

This study was conducted only in specific Auckland areas.

This study is significant for advanced design research and provides valuable insights, guidelines and deployment pathways for designers, practitioners and regulators when developing HMI Systems for AD vehicles.

This study is the first-ever AV user study in New Zealand in live traffic conditions. This user study also claimed its novelty due to AV trials in congested and fast-moving traffic on the four-lane motorway in New Zealand. Previously, none of the studies conducted AV user study on SUV BMW vehicle and motorway in real-time traffic conditions; all operations were completely autonomous without any input from the driver. Thus, it explored the essential autonomous driving (AD) trust influencing variables in human factors and legal readiness domains. This research is also unique in identifying critical AD determinants that affect the user trust, acceptance and adoption of AVs in New Zealand by bridging the socio-technical gap with futuristic research insights.

Provisions for the minimisation of human error are essential through governance structures such as recruitment, human resource allocation and education/training. As predictors of safety attitudes/behaviours, employees’ personality traits (e.g. conscientiousness, sensation-seeking, agreeableness, etc.) have been examined in relation to human error and safety education.

This review aimed to explore research activity on the safety attitudes of healthcare staff and their relationship with the different types of personalities, compared to other complex and highly regulated industries. A scoping review was conducted on five electronic databases on all industrial/work areas from 2001 to July 2023. A total of 60 studies were included in this review.

Studies were categorised as driving/traffic and industrial to draw useful comparisons between healthcare. Certain employees’ personality traits were matched to positive and negative relationships with safety attitudes/behaviours. Results are proposed to be used as a baseline when conducting further relevant research in healthcare.

Only two studies were identified in the healthcare sector.

The necessity for additional research in healthcare and for comparisons to other complex and highly regulated industries has been established. Safety will be enhanced through healthcare governance through personality-based recruitment, human resource allocation and education/training.

This chapter focuses on cycle tourism using Bambike (Bamboo Bike) as sustainable transportation in the heritage site of Intramuros to promote cultural awareness and environmental preservation. Bambike is a bicycle where parts are made from natural bamboo and abaca with aircraft grade alloys tested for durability that passed the standards in the industry. The purpose of this chapter is to determine the value of cycle tourism using Bambike to promote green tourism in Intramuros and preserve its attractions. Its significance and benefits as to economic, environmental, and sociocultural impacts have been analyzed. The information source and data collection for this research was from the selected local and international tourists in Intramuros who have experienced and booked a trip with Bambike. An interview with structure questionnaire was done for the tourists and Bambike staff. It was concluded that Bambike can contribute to create site awareness leading to desire to preserve the heritage sites of Intramuros.

The potential of vehicle ad hoc networks (VANETs) to improve driver and passenger safety and security has made them a hot topic in the field of intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). VANETs have different characteristics and system architectures from mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), with a primary focus on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. But protecting VANETs from malicious assaults is crucial because they can undermine network security and safety.

The black hole attack is a well-known danger to VANETs. It occurs when a hostile node introduces phony routing tables into the network, potentially damaging it and interfering with communication. A safe ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol has been created in response to this issue. By adding cryptographic features for source and target node verification to the route request (RREQ) and route reply (RREP) packets, this protocol improves upon the original AODV routing system.

Through the use of cryptographic-based encryption and decryption techniques, the suggested method fortifies the VANET connection. In addition, other network metrics are taken into account to assess the effectiveness of the secure AODV routing protocol under black hole attacks, including packet loss, end-to-end latency, packet delivery ratio (PDR) and routing request overhead. Results from simulations using an NS-2.33 simulator show how well the suggested fix works to enhance system performance and lessen the effects of black hole assaults on VANETs.

All things considered, the safe AODV routing protocol provides a strong method for improving security and dependability in VANET systems, protecting against malevolent attacks and guaranteeing smooth communication between cars and infrastructure.

This study aims to comprehensively address the challenge of delineating traffic scenarios in video footage captured by an embedded camera within an autonomous vehicle.

This methodology involves systematically elucidating the traffic context by leveraging data from the object recognition subsystem embedded in vehicular road infrastructure. A knowledge base containing production rules and logical inference mechanism was developed. These components enable real-time procedures for describing traffic situations.

The production rule system focuses on semantically modeling entities that are categorized as traffic lights and road signs. The effectiveness of the methodology was tested experimentally using diverse image datasets representing various meteorological conditions. A thorough analysis of the results was conducted, which opens avenues for future research.

Originality lies in the potential integration of the developed methodology into an autonomous vehicle’s control system, working alongside other procedures that analyze the current situation. These applications extend to driver assistance systems, harmonized with augmented reality technology, and enhance human decision-making processes.

Construction accidents cause as much harm in Bangladeshi construction as it does globally. This study examines the primary causes of accidents and undertakes an impact assessment of neglecting safety protocols in construction projects in Bangladesh, funded publicly, privately and through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Research was initiated with a comprehensive questionnaire from experts, sourcing data in Bangladesh's construction sector. Data analysis utilized Cronbach's alpha, relative important index and a fishbone diagram for causal visualization.

The study identified the three major causes of safety negligence as “Poor safety culture (RII = 0.857),” “Top management's inattention (RII = 0.825)” and “Lack of personal care (RII = 0.825).” Effects: “Rising project expenses (RII = 0.88),” “Increased medical costs (RII = 0.87)” and “Worker compensation expenses (RII = 0.87).” The study also used the Ishikawa-Fishbone and effect-flow diagrams to highlight accident causes/effects and compare their primary causes in PPP, public and private projects.

Research on construction safety in Bangladesh has mainly focused on identifying factors within specific construction sectors. Since the rules and regulations vary across these three sectors, different health and safety hazards may arise. As a result, this research fills a critical gap by providing a comparative study that examines the causes and impacts of different project types in the Bangladeshi construction industry. By pinpointing the result, this research aims to enhance the safety and well-being of the construction workers sector-wise, thereby contributing to the industry's sustainable growth.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assessment of service quality of bus fleet services based on the service quality influencing factors. The paper also tries to evolve a quantitative measure for fleet service quality in the form of a fleet service quality index.

A graph theoretical approach is employed in this paper for bus fleet service quality assessment. Modelling of fleet service quality factors and their interrelations with due attention towards their structure is achieved through graph theory. A directed graph (digraph) of the service quality is developed, where its nodes represent factors influencing the quality while its edges show the degree of interrelationships. A matrix, which is equivalent to the digraph, is established that will generate a service quality function that will result in the development of a fleet service quality index (FSQI).

Attaining customer satisfaction through assurance of quality is the cornerstone of the existence and survival of any business organization, and bus fleet services are no exception to this. Several influential factors are there for the bus fleet service quality. This research paper has identified factors such as fleet management practices, operational characteristics, safety and reliability features, travel comfort, bus maintenance and environmental concerns that affect fleet service quality. Every factor is composed of distinct sub-factors. Furthermore, these factors are linked with one another. A higher value of the fleet service quality index indicates the adequate performance of the bus fleet service organization.

The methodology is useful for not only evaluating but also for comparison of service quality of different fleet agencies or organizations. The perceptions would be useful to the fleet service managers to create procedures and arrangements for improving the service quality.

The paper identifies various service quality factors of the bus fleet and an evaluation scheme for those factors has been developed. Based on these, a framework had been developed for the assessment of the service quality of different fleet service providers.