Impact of Road Central Greening Configuration on Driver Eye Movements: A Study Based on Real Vehicle Experiments

Safe driving depends on drivers’ ability to rapidly and accurately process information in varying traffic conditions. The presence of central green landscapes on roads is a key factor in this context. However, there is a gap in current research, which tends to focus on qualitative aspects of landscape design while lacking quantitative data-driven analyses. In this study, we aim to address this gap by investigating the impact of road central greening configuration on the eye movements of young novice drivers, a population particularly sensitive to external environmental changes. Specifically, we explore the influence of central green landscapes on four visual parameters: driver gaze, saccade, blinking, and pupil behavior. Through real vehicle experiments conducted on different road sections, we collected visual feature data to comprehensively analyze the patterns of driver eye movements. Our findings reveal that the introduction of central green landscapes can exert cognitive pressure on drivers, leading to specific alterations in their visual parameters. These changes include dispersed gaze points, reduced effective gaze durations, increased gaze frequencies, extended saccade durations and angles, heightened blink durations and frequencies, and reduced pupil area. By shedding light on the intricate interplay between road central greenery and driver behavior, this study provides valuable insights for optimizing landscape design in transportation planning and enhancing road safety considerations.