QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF HIGHWAY ALIGNMENT BY THE USE OF PERSPECTIVE DRAWINGS

Until recent times highways have been designed principally from the viewpoint of driving dynamics. This has been proven insufficient when we take into consideration the safety and comfort of driving, and the use of highway perspectives has been recommended to improve their alignment. The purpose of this paper is to show a quantitative scaling in the assessment of highway alignment through paired comparisons of perspective drawings. Typical highway alignments were categorized into groups and used as the experimental material. Ordinary subjects and a group of specialists were asked which perspective shown seemed better. They were also asked to rank order the various drawings from better to worse. The result of experiments were analysed principally using Guttman's or Bradley's methods. The following results were obtained: alignments are disliked when a straight section is inserted into a curve. A worse situation arises when a fixed-grade section is inserted into a curve in a vertical alignment. Even worse is the case where these are inserted into a curvilinear horizontal alignment. The situation is better when both the vertical and horizontal alignment are composed of smooth curves. Consistency of opinion among the group of specialists was generally good. (a) Paper presented at the 7th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association held in Warsaw, 27-31 August 1979. (TRRL)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00140139
• Corporate Authors:

  Taylor & Francis

  4 Park Square, Milton Park
  Abingdon,   United Kingdom  OX14 4RN
• Authors:
  • Edamura, T
• Publication Date: 1979-6

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 757
• Serial:
  • Ergonomics
  • Volume: 22
  • Issue Number: 6
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISSN: 0014-0139
  • EISSN: 1366-5847
  • Serial URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/terg20

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alignment; Comfort; Design; Drawings; Driving; Dynamics; Highway curves; Highway design; Highway planning; Perspective views; Safety
• ITRD Terms: 2894: Alignment; 9138: Comfort; 9011: Design (overall design); 1855: Driving (veh); 5473: Dynamics; 1665: Safety
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00308795
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 22 1980 12:00AM