Given the aging highway infrastructure requiring extensive rebuilding and
enhancements, and the consequent rise in the number of work zones, there is an
urgent need to develop advanced safety systems to protect workers. While
Augmented Reality (AR) holds significant potential for delivering warnings to
workers, its integration into roadway work zones remains relatively unexplored.
The primary objective of this study is to improve safety measures within
roadway work zones by conducting an extensive analysis of how different
combinations of multimodal AR warnings influence the reaction times of workers.
This paper addresses this gap through a series of experiments that aim to
replicate the distinctive conditions of roadway work zones, both in real-world
and virtual reality environments. Our approach comprises three key components:
an advanced AR system prototype, a VR simulation of AR functionality within the
work zone environment, and the Wizard of Oz technique to synchronize user
experiences across experiments. To assess reaction times, we leverage both the
simple reaction time (SRT) technique and an innovative vision-based metric that
utilizes real-time pose estimation. By conducting five experiments in
controlled outdoor work zones and indoor VR settings, our study provides
valuable information on how various multimodal AR warnings impact workers
reaction times. Furthermore, our findings reveal the disparities in reaction
times between VR simulations and real-world scenarios, thereby gauging VR's
capability to mirror the dynamics of roadway work zones. Furthermore, our
results substantiate the potential and reliability of vision-based reaction
time measurements. These insights resonate well with those derived using the
SRT technique, underscoring the viability of this approach for tangible
real-world uses.

提高工地工人的道路工区安全措施对于日益老化的公路基础设施以及工区数量的增加具有迫切需求。本研究旨在通过对不同组合的多模态增强现实警告对工人反应时间的影响进行广泛分析，改善道路工区的安全措施。通过在真实环境和虚拟现实环境中模拟道路工区的特殊条件，本研究通过三个关键组件（先进的增强现实系统原型、工区环境内的虚拟现实模拟和用户体验同步的 Wizard of Oz 技术）进行了一系列实验。通过在控制的室外工区和室内虚拟现实环境中进行五项实验，我们的研究提供了关于各种多模态增强现实警告如何影响工人反应时间的宝贵信息。此外，我们的研究结果揭示了虚拟现实模拟和实际场景之间的反应时间差异，从而评估了虚拟现实模拟道路工区动态的能力，并证实了基于视觉的反应时间测量的潜力和可靠性。这些发现与使用简单反应时间技术得出的结果是一致的，强调了这种方法在实际应用中的可行性。