Enhancing Street-Crossing Safety for Visually Impaired Pedestrians with Haptic and Visual Feedback

Safe street crossing poses significant challenges for visually impaired pedestrians, who must rely on non-visual cues to assess crossing safety. Conventional assistive technologies often fail to provide real-time, actionable information about oncoming traffic, making independent navigation difficult, particularly in uncontrolled or vehicle-based crossing scenarios. To address these challenges, we designed and evaluated two assistive systems utilizing haptic and visual feedback, tailored for traffic signal-controlled intersections and vehicle-based crossings. The results indicate that visual feedback significantly improved decision efficiency at signalized intersections, enabling users to make faster decisions, regardless of their confidence levels. However, in vehicle-based crossings, where real-time hazard assessment is crucial, haptic feedback proved more effective, enhancing decision efficiency by enabling quicker and more intuitive judgments about approaching vehicles. Moreover, users generally preferred haptic feedback in both scenarios, citing its comfort and intuitiveness. These findings highlight the distinct challenges posed by different street-crossing environments and confirm the value of multimodal feedback systems in supporting visually impaired pedestrians. Our study provides important design insights for developing effective assistive technologies that enhance pedestrian safety and independence across varied urban settings.