Human Factors and Safety Group & Virtuocity

@ptw86.bsky.social and Hsuan Chao will be exhibiting with a desktop simulator set up to show some of our use cases to delegates, while @ibrahimozturk.bsky.social and Ruth Madigan will be presenting some of their latest work.

On the 4th and 5th November, we're going to be attending and exhibiting at The National Road Safety Conference, organised by Road Safety GB, at Wyboston Lakes, England.

Fatigue assessment of forklift operators in a 12-hour shift system - Tianbo Wang, Ibrahim Öztürk, Wei Lyu, Zuojiang Ning, 2025 Background In recent years, numerous large-scale manufacturing enterprises in Northeastern China have shifted from the conventional 8-h shift model to an extend...

Our new paper, "Fatigue assessment of forklift operators in a 12-hour shift system", led by Tianbo Wang, was published in WORK: A journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation. Check the full text here: doi.org/10.1177/1051...

🔍 I’m pleased to share our latest open-access article <Is drivers’ interaction with pedestrians affected by cognitive load and LED bands? A driving simulator study investigating performance across two age groups during different ambient lighting conditions> now published in TRF.

Here’s what we packed in:
🔑 Three keynotes
⭐ 6 special sessions
🧩 25 parallel sessions with 109 presentations
📌 24 posters
🕹️ Virtuocity tours
🍽️ A great conference dinner with joyful dancing! 💃🕺

@envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

The 20th RS5C conference officially concluded! ✅ What a joy to co-organise with the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). Massive thanks to the organising & scientific committees, our brilliant volunteers, and every author and 218 delegates who joined us from 37 countries 🌎

We’ve wrapped the pre- #RS5C conference Virtuocity tours and welcome reception 🎉 Huge thanks to everyone who attended today. Can’t wait to kick off the conference tomorrow! 🏵

🛴 New Publication! I’m delighted to share our new article “Exploring attitudes and behavioural intentions towards e-scooter use in Türkiye: Differences between users and non-users” with @nazliakay.bsky.social, published in the Journal of Transport Geography.

📖 Open Access: doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...

It’s always a pleasure to contribute to this vibrant community and exchange ideas on the future. If you’re attending, come join the discussions and connect with us!

#AutoUI2025 #HumanFactors #AutomotiveUI #RoadSafety #TransportResearch #DrivingBehaviour #HMI #FutureMobility

📄 Drivers’ Attention to Dash-Based Human-Machine Interfaces: The Effect of Partial Automation and Cognitive Load
Format: Full paper
Authors:
Hao Qin, Rafael Gonçalves, Courtney Goodridge, and Natasha Merat

📄 Measuring Driver Electrodermal Activity when Exposed to HMIs Conveying Uncertainty in Conditional Automated Driving
Format: Full paper
Authors: Jorge Pardo, Xiaomeng Li, Michael Gerber, Rafael Gonçalves, Jonny Kuo, Mike Lenné, and Ronald Schroeter

📄 Measuring Passengers’ Comfort and Perceived Safety in Automated Driving: Good Practices and Challenges
Format: Workshop
Organisers: Chen Peng, Pavlo Bazilinskyy, Yueteng Yu, Natasha Merat

📄 What makes a ready driver? A deep dive into the measurement and validation of readiness estimation for driver monitoring systems of partially automated (SAE level 2) vehicles by Rafael Cirino Gonçalves, Courtney Michael Goodridge, Jorge Pardo, Amélie Reher, Jonny Kuo, Audrey Bruneau, Natasha Merat

🚗✨ Next month, we’ll be presenting at the 17th International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutoUI 2025).

Our researchers will be sharing cutting-edge work on human factors, driver behaviour, and automotive interaction design.

We also hosted a booth to showcase Virtuocity, our state-of-the-art simulation and research facility, and how it supports innovation in transport safety.

A huge thank you to colleagues at LCC and the WYCA for their leadership and commitment to collaboration and Vision Zero across West Yorkshire.

and @ibrahimozturk.bsky.social shared the UKRI-funded impact project and the Road Safety Trust-funded e-SAFE (led by Steve O'Hern) and ENDS (led by Ruth Madigan) projects. All projects are designed to generate evidence-based solutions that inform real-world change.

🚦 Today, our team was proud to take part in the Vision Zero Conference organised by Leeds City Council at Millennium Square.

🎤 Yue Yang presented our The Road Safety Trust–funded project "Autistic Children Matter" (led by Yee Mun Lee)

@envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

New publication 📢 "Testing the Validity of Multiparticipant Distributed Simulation for Understanding and Modeling Road User Interaction" led by Amir Hossein Kalantari together with Yi-Shin Lin, Ali Mohammadi, Natasha Merat OBE, and @markkula.bsky.social.

Access: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/111...

New publication 📢 "Effects of adopting voice assistants countermeasures on alerting drowsy drivers across age" led by Wei Zhang from Tsinghua University, together with Oliver Carsten, and Courtney Goodridge.

Full text: doi.org/10.1016/j.ap...

Highways Magazine Highways Magazine - Highways July 2025

👉 Read the full story in Highways Magazine: edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader...

@envleeds.bsky.social

We’re delighted to see Associate Prof. Dr. Yee Mun Lee and the Autistic Children Matter project featured in Highways Magazine! Funded by The Road Safety Trust, this pioneering research explores road crossing challenges faced by autistic children using the HIKER.

The Path to Driving Aggression and Crash Risk: The Role of Metacognition and Anger Rumination in Anger Expression Among Chinese Drivers Driving anger and aggressive anger expression are prevalent in China, leading to road crashes. While potential associations between metacognitive beliefs about worry and control, anger rumination, an...

New publication <<The Path to Driving Aggression and Crash Risk: The Role of Metacognition and Anger Rumination in Anger Expression Among Chinese Drivers>> led by Chenzhao Zhai.

doi.org/10.1002/ab.7...

• eHMIs significantly influence drivers’ PIT when AV’s behaviour is ambiguous.

• Specific time points (Passing Initiation Time, PIT; Yielding Initiation Time, YIT) to pinpoint the exact decision times before the bottleneck.
• eHMI enhances perceived safety and trust but may introduce uncertainty when kinematic cues are clear.

Highlights
• Knowing whether the approaching vehicle is an AV or an MV does not impact driver performance.
• Lateral offset is crucial for AVs to communicate intention effectively.

New publication: "Investigating driver responses to automated vehicles in a bottleneck scenario: The impact of lateral offset and eHMI" led by Yang Li and with Yee Mun Lee, Ruth Madigan, Armin Grunwald, Barbara Deml, & Natasha Merat.

doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

University community recognised in Birthday Honours A leading road safety researcher and a sports ambassador who helped turn Leeds into a global centre for triathlon are among those recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours.

Read more:
1) uolds.leeds.ac.uk/news/group-l...

2) www.leeds.ac.uk/main-index/n...

@envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

Natasha’s work has been at the forefront of research into transport safety, human factors, automation, and emerging mobility systems. Her leadership, vision, and dedication have not only shaped academic understanding but also informed real-world policy and practice.

We are incredibly proud to share some fantastic news from our team! 🎉

Our Head of Group and Academic Lead for Virtuocity, Professor Natasha Merat OBE, has been awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her outstanding services to Future Transport Systems. 🇬🇧🎖️

📢 New publication <<PIP-Net: Pedestrian Intention Prediction in the Wild>> by @azarmi.bsky.social, Mahdi Rezaei, and He Wang. Early access link: doi.org/10.1109/TITS...