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Helping Shoreline Drivers Navigate the Future: An Interactive Roundabout Learning Experience
- Jeff Rayner
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
Have you ever turned into an intersection and thought "oh no, what am I supposed to do here?"
As communities continue to invest in safer and more efficient transportation infrastructure, public education plays a critical role in ensuring new road designs are successful. That's exactly the goal behind our latest collaboration with PRR and the City of Shoreline.
Together, we've developed an interactive driving experience that helps residents understand how to confidently navigate Shoreline's new dual roundabouts before they encounter them on the road.
Why This Project Matters
While roundabouts have become increasingly common across North America due to their proven safety and traffic flow benefits, they remain unfamiliar to many drivers. For communities introducing roundabouts for the first time, questions naturally arise:
Which lane should I use?
Who has the right of way?
How do I safely interact with pedestrians and cyclists?
What if I'm driving a bus, truck, or larger vehicle?
Without education and practice, uncertainty can lead to hesitation, poor decisions, and preventable collisions.
Learning by Doing
Rather than relying solely on brochures or instructional videos, PRR and the City of Shoreline wanted to create something far more engaging—an experience where people could learn by driving.
Drivers of Tomorrow (MXT Reality) developed a portable simulator that recreates Shoreline's new dual roundabout in a realistic virtual environment. In just a few minutes, participants can:
Practice approaching and entering a roundabout.
Learn correct lane positioning.
Yield appropriately to other vehicles.
Safely navigate around pedestrians and cyclists.
Experience common driving situations without real-world risk.
By allowing participants to make decisions and receive immediate feedback, the simulator builds confidence in a way that traditional educational materials simply can't.
Designed for the Entire Community
One of the project's goals was accessibility. The experience has been developed in multiple languages, including:
Amharic
Arabic
Chinese
English
Russian
Spanish
Tigrinya
Vietnamese
This ensures more members of the Shoreline community can learn using the language they're most comfortable with, helping make road safety education inclusive and effective.
The City of Shoreline took the simulator to over 12 events during the last few months, and the community are now more aware and more prepared.
As you can see, you can even take the portable simulator to outdoor locations.
A Portable Experience for Community Events
The simulator has been designed to travel. Whether it's a community festival, open house, transportation expo, school event, or public information session, residents can step into the driver's seat and experience the roundabout firsthand.
The result is a memorable, hands-on educational activity that transforms an unfamiliar traffic feature into something understandable—and even enjoyable.
More Than Just a Simulator
This project demonstrates how immersive technology can enhance public education. By combining realistic simulation with engaging instructional design, agencies can help people learn faster, retain information longer, and approach new infrastructure with confidence.
As cities continue to modernize transportation networks, interactive experiences like this provide an exciting new way to connect with the public and improve road safety before drivers ever leave the parking lot.
We're proud to have partnered with PRR and the City of Shoreline on this innovative initiative and look forward to seeing the positive impact it has on the community.
Because the best way to learn isn't just to be told—it's to experience it.
You can learn more about the solution here