Clustering of Driver Behavioral Strategies During Speed Cushion Traversal: A Driving Simulator Study

Abstract

Highlights: What are the main findings? Device-centered telemetry segments reveal three recurrent speed-cushion crossing strategies based on speed, braking, and lane position. Speed cushions shift segment distributions from fast, weakly moderated crossings toward cautious profiles, with moderate within-driver concentration. What are the implications of the main findings? Evaluating traffic calming measures only through mean speed can miss meaningful differences in control strategy. The proposed pipeline supports behavior-oriented comparisons across conditions and devices and can assist the behavioral evaluation of traffic calming solutions beyond “average speed reduction”. Traffic calming measures are widely used to reduce operating speeds and mitigate crash risk in urban corridors; however, the way drivers adapt their control strategy when traversing Berlin speed cushions is still poorly described from a multivariate behavioral perspective. This study proposes a behavior-oriented analysis to identify recurring speed-cushion traversal strategies using driving simulator telemetry. A fixed-base simulator reproduced a real urban corridor, and trajectories were segmented in device-centered spatial windows capturing approach, traversal, and immediate recovery. Each segment was summarized by three indicators describing longitudinal and lateral control: mean speed, peak braking demand, and average lane position deviation. Features were standardized and clustered using k-means. The number of clusters was selected primarily through mean silhouette evaluation, while resampling-based checks and a Gaussian mixture modeling comparison were used as supportive evidence rather than competing decision rules. Three traversal profiles emerged: smooth cautious, reactive cautious, and unmoderated fast. The introduction of speed cushions shifted the distribution of segments towards cautious profiles, while driver-level concentration within a single profile was moderate. Overall, results indicate that speed cushions influence the whole vehicle control strategy, offering a quantitative basis for behavior-oriented evaluation of local traffic calming interventions in smart-city contexts.