One of the pleasures of using a bicycle or scooter is the amount of interactivity that cyclists experience with their surroundings. “Verkehr” in German also means communication, contact, negotiation. Although such communication and decision-making is usually implicit and nonverbal, it is omnipresent on the road, as cycling space is often scarce and shared with other cyclists and e-scooters (collectively known as Small Things On Wheels), or other road user types, sometimes leading to friction or conflict.

As part of the efforts of the German Research Foundation (DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to support innovative, fundamental mobility research, the project ARROW (Augmented Reality expeRiments for small things On Wheels) will lay the groundwork for new methods to analyse and understand cyclist’s utilisation of space, in particular within a social context, such as riding as part of a pair or a group. By utilising augmented reality environments, these experiments will combine realism and authenticity with a safe and highly repeatable setup.

As a joint project with Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), the Chair of Bicycle Traffic (BT) will be responsible for the realization of field experiments and the analysis of the resulting data, which will help refine and further develop the microscopic simulation of cyclists.

First, experimental protocols will be developed to ensure the AR setup is valid and reflects user’s real world expectation to a sufficient level. In addition, all necessary measures will be tested to reduce dizziness, simulator sickness, and maintain balance through the necessary amount of familiarization and acclimatization.

In parallel, the RPTU will be developing advanced Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLaM) methods from which accurate spatial information can be derived via the AR headsets’ cameras and reliably fed from multiple participants into one simulation environment as the key connector between real world actors and their simulated surroundings in the AR environment.

Once this preparatory research is complete, indoor and outdoor experiments may then take place, with different scenarios that capture the breadth of possible interactions: riders alone, overtaking a slower group, or overtaking together as a pair, and so on, while varying the spacing, distance, and width between the different riders.

After acquiring raw data about the cyclist’s dynamics and movements, the third phase will involve detailed analysis and clustering of behavior types and modelling those behaviors within a SUMO-based simulation.

The aim of this project is first to explore the behaviour of bicycle, scooter, and other two-wheel drivers as well as factors affecting constellations of Small Things on Wheels moving together in order to implement these dynamics into microscopic simulation.

Additionally, the project also serves to set up a foundational framework for the technical requirements and protocols needed to carry out and validate AR traffic experiments.

Finally, an important goal of this project is to develop a flexible AR platform geared specifically towards traffic experiments – the Open AR Lab software suite – which will be made publicly available to facilitate further research.

This project is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG.

01 October 2025 until 30 September 2028

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heather Kaths
kaths[at]uni-wuppertal.de
+49 (0)202 / 439 4433