Exterior sounds for electric and automated vehicles: Loud is effective

•The effect of vehicle sounds on pedestrians’ road-crossing decisions was examined.•Online participants assessed various sounds such as tire noise, tones, and beeps.•Sounds that were perceived as loud were effective in deterring pedestrians from crossing.•Beeps were ineffective, presumably due to information gaps in inter-pulse intervals.•Tire noise was both effective and perceived as the least annoying. Exterior vehicle sounds have been introduced in electric vehicles and as external human–machine interfaces for automated vehicles. While previous research has studied the effect of exterior vehicle sounds on detectability and acceptance, the present study takes on a different approach by examining the efficacy of such sounds in deterring people from crossing the road. An online study was conducted in which 226 participants were presented with different types of synthetic sounds, including sounds of a combustion engine, pure tones, combined tones, and beeps. Participants were presented with a scenario where a vehicle moved in a straight trajectory at a constant velocity of 30 km/h, without any accompanying visual information. Participants, acting as pedestrians, were asked to hold down a key when they felt safe to cross. After each trial, they assessed whether the vehicle sound was easy to notice, whether it gave enough information to realize that a vehicle was approaching, and whether the sound was annoying. The results showed that sounds of higher modeled perceived loudness, such as continuous tones with high frequency, were the most effective in deterring participants from crossing the road. The tested intermittent beeps resulted in lower crossing deterrence than continuous tones, presumably because no valuable information could be derived during the inter-pulse intervals. Tire noise proved to be effective in deterring participants from crossing while being the least annoying among the sounds tested. These results may prove insightful for the improvement of synthetic exterior vehicle sounds.