  Pedestrian occlusion is challenging for autonomous vehicles (AVs) at midblock
locations on multilane roadways because an AV cannot detect crossing
pedestrians that are fully occluded by downstream vehicles in adjacent lanes.
This paper tests the capability of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication
between an AV and its downstream vehicles to share midblock pedestrian
crossings information. The researchers developed a V2V-based
collision-avoidance decision strategy and compared it to a base scenario (i.e.,
decision strategy without the utilization of V2V). Simulation results showed
that for the base scenario, the near-zero time-to-collision (TTC) indicated no
time for the AV to take appropriate action and resulted in dramatic braking
followed by collisions. But the V2V-based collision-avoidance decision strategy
allowed for a proportional braking approach to increase the TTC allowing the
pedestrian to cross safely. To conclude, the V2V-based collision-avoidance
decision strategy has higher safety benefits for an AV interacting with fully
occluded pedestrians at midblock locations on multilane roadways.
