Augmented Reality ‘‘AR’’ is a promising paradigm that can offer users with real-time, high-
quality visualization of a wide variety of information. In AR, virtual objects are added to the
real-world view in real time. The AR technology can offer a very realistic environment for
enhancing drivers’ performance on the road and testing drivers’ ability to react to different
road design and traffic operations scenarios. This can be achieved by adding virtual objects
(people, vehicles, hazards, and other objects) to the normal view while driving an actual
vehicle in a real environment. This paper explores a new Augmented Reality Vehicle
‘‘ARV’’ system and attempts to apply this new concept to a selected traffic engineering
application namely the left-turn maneuver at two-way stop-controlled ‘‘TWSC’’ intersec-
tion. This TWSC intersection experiment, in addition to testing the feasibility of the appli-
cation, tries to quantify the size of gaps accepted by different driver’s characteristics (age
and gender). The ARV system can be installed in any vehicle where the driver can see
the surrounding environment through a Head Mounted Display ‘‘HMD’’ and virtual objects
are generated through a computer and added to the scene. These different environments
are generated using a well defined set of scenarios. The results from this study supported
the feasibility and validity of the proposed ARV system and they showed promise for this
system to be used in the field-testing for the safety and operation aspects of transportation
research. Results of the left-turn maneuver study revealed that participants accepted gaps
in the range of 4.0–9.0 s. This finding implies that all gaps below 4 s are rejected and all
gaps above 9 s are likely to be accepted. The mean value of the left-turn time was 4.67 s
which is a little bit higher than reported values in the literature (4.0–4.3 s). Older drivers
were found to select larger gaps to make left turns than younger drivers. The conservative
driving attitude of older drivers indicates the potential presence of reduced driving ability
of elderly. Drivers’ characteristics (age and gender) did not significantly affect the left-turn
time. Based on the survey questions that were handed to participants, most participants
indicated good level of comfort with none or small level of risk while driving the vehicle
with the ARV system. None of the participants felt any kind of motion sickness and the
participants’ answers indicated a good visibility and realism of the scene with overall good
system fidelity.