Yesterday, we had the pleasure of hosting the Department for Transport (DfT) Senior Analyst Team at Virtuocity. It was a fantastic opportunity to showcase our ongoing work, share insights, and explore how advanced simulation and behavioural research can support evidence-based transport policy.

New publication 📢 "Crossing in the dark: Investigating the effect of vehicle kinematics and eHMI on older pedestrians’ crossing behavior in a virtual reality experiment" by Yee Mun Lee et al... doi.org/10.1016/j.js...

Wishing you all a lovely, relaxing, and healthy time with family and friends over the holidays, and all the best for 2026!

📢 Fresh off the press! “Asynchrony of directional auditory warnings and visual information in hands-on SAE level 2 automated vehicles: Analysis of driver responses” by Ali Arabian, Courtney Goodridge, and Natasha Merat OBE. 🔗 Read the full article here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Last week at the National Road Safety Conference by Road Safety GB. We had a fantastic time engaging with the road safety community! A big thank you to everyone who visited us, asked questions, and engaged in meaningful discussions.

New publication: "Exploring the effects of sex category, gender roles, and gender stereotypes on one's own, women's and men's driving behaviour in Türkiye and France". We investigated the relationships between sex, gender roles, and driver behaviours across two countries. doi.org/10.1016/j.re...

It is my pleasure to share that in 2028, we will be hosting the 9th International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology (ICTTP9). Exciting times ahead, we can’t wait to welcome you! @markkula.bsky.social, @hfs-its-leeds.bsky.social, @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

We are honoured to host Assoc. Prof. Dr. Maryam Zahabi (Director of the Human-System Interaction (HSI) Lab) from Texas A&M University, as part of her sabbatical visit to our group.

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.

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.

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...

🚗✨ 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.

🚦 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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

We're proud to share that our brilliant PhD students will be presenting their research at the upcoming ICTTP8 - International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology! 🎉

🚦 Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting our e-SAFE (Equity, Social Determinants, Anti-social Behaviour and Future E-Mobility) project, funded by @therstrust.bsky.social, at the @pactsuk.bsky.social Road User Behaviour Working Party.

Another fantastic opportunity with a fantastic supervisor 👇

We are excited to announce a new PhD opportunity in our team <<Evaluation of mental models of automated driving>>. A fully funded PhD opportunity, open to all nationalities. phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2257... @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

We are looking for a Research Fellow in Human Factors. To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact: Dr Yee Mun Lee ([email protected]) jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx... @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

We are excited to announce a new PhD opportunity in our team <<EPSRC IDLA: Driver Attention during SAE L3 automated driving: the role of non-driving related tasks >> 👇 phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2255... @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

I am happy to share our recent work < Same Risk But Different Attribution: Locus of Control Moderates the Relationship Between Risk Perception and Driver Behaviors >. doi.org/10.1177/0361... @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

Today, group members (Courtney Goodridge, Yee Thung Lee, and Yuwei Wang) showcased our work at Roundhay School for the Y12 Social Sciences Showcase. A huge thank you for their warm welcome, and to all the curious and engaged students we met.🧠 @envleeds.bsky.social @universityofleeds.bsky.social

📢 Excited to share our latest publication from the Hi-Drive project! 📖 You can read the full open-access article here: doi.org/10.1016/j.te... @hfs-its-leeds.bsky.social, @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social, @vtt.fi

New publication "Which unsafe riding behaviours are associated with traffic offences and crashes? A study of young Indonesian motorcyclists" by yeni sagala, Samantha Jamson, and Ruth Madigan. doi.org/10.1016/j.cs...

Spring is here 🌸, and with it a new season of research and collaboration. As the days get brighter and longer, we're looking forward to welcoming new projects and launching our new driving simulator!

Excited to share new publication, “Cyclists’ interactions with professional and non-professional drivers: Observations and game theoretic models”, led by Ali mohammadi, with co-authors Amir Hossein Kalantari, our own @markkula.bsky.social, and Marco Dozza. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

We’re happy to share a new article <<HMI design in the context of DMS and automation: emerging themes from an expert workshop>> co-authored by our team members Rafael C. Gonçalves and Natasha Merat. Read the full study here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We're delighted to welcome our Hi-Drive colleagues to Leeds! We're diving into key research questions, progress and new challenges in automation and user research. The day kicked off with a warm welcome from our research group leader and users subproject leader, Natasha Merat.

Thrilled to share some exciting news! Our PhD student @azarmi.bsky.social has been awarded a prestigious Turing placement fund, enabling him to visit the National University of Galway (NUI) from late April to May 2025.

New publication alert! 📢 We’re excited to share a new article <<“It’s just another car driving” − Perceptions of U.S. residents interacting with driverless automated vehicles on public roads>> co-authored by our team members Yee Mun Lee and Natasha Merat

Huge congratulations to Yue Yang on successfully defending her thesis “Automated Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction: The effects of communication strategies and repeated exposures".

Check out Prof. Natasha Merat, Research Group Leader @HFS_ITSLeeds, whose work focuses on human factors in transport systems. A leading expert in the field, she also co-chairs the EC's H2020 Transport Advisory Group: environment.leeds.ac.uk/transport/st...

Check out @markkula.bsky.social’s fantastic tips for “pain-free(?) academic writing”! Perfect for some weekend reading. Don’t miss his insightful list.

📢 New publication: <<Improving models of pedestrian crossing behavior using neural signatures of decision-making >> by Siwei Ma, Xuedong Yan, Jac Billington, Matteo Leonetti, Natasha Merat, & @markkula.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

📢 New publication "Validation of human benchmark models for automated driving system approval: How competent and careful are they really?" by Pierluigi Olleja, @markkula.bsky.social, Jonas Bärgman doi.org/10.1016/j.aa...

Our research group leader, Prof. Natasha Merat, has shared some of the key challenges and needs in AV public education and communication 👇 www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... @envleeds.bsky.social, @universityofleeds.bsky.social

📢 New publication: "Overtaking automated truck platoons: Effects of platoon organisations and traffic situation on driving behaviours of nearby manual vehicle drivers" by Zijian Lin, Feng Chen, @ibrahimozturk.bsky.social, and Natasha Merat. eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

New publication 📢 "Using a traffic climate scale to understand drivers’ perceptions of their traffic system: An examination of measurement invariance across eight countries" by @ibrahimozturk.bsky.social et al. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New publication 📢 "Pedestrian crossing decisions can be explained by bounded optimal decision-making under noisy visual perception" by Yueyang Wang, Aravinda Ramakrishnan Srinivasan, Jussi P.P. Jokinen, Antti Oulasvirta, & @markkula.bsky.social. Full text: doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Happy New Year! 🎉

As 2024 comes to a close, we're reflecting on a fantastic year for the Human Factors and Safety Group and Virtuocity. Highlights include celebrating our 30th anniversary, saying goodbye to our second-gen driving simulator, and preparing for the launch of our third-gen driving simulator in 2025.