ROAD LIGHTING - VISIBILITY AND ACCIDENT REDUCTION

Money is spent on lighting roads primarily because of improved safety. Such matters as civic pride, public amenity and driver comfort may be brought into the argument, but if it were not believed that fixed lighting has a significant effect on road accidents we would not have the mileage of traffic route lighting we enjoy today. The first section of this paper summarises the evidence linking road lighting and accident reduction. Since this link is presumably a consequence of improved visibility, it should be possible to make some theoretical predictions about the benefits of road lighting from a knowledge of human visual performance characteristics. Such predictions are made in the second section of this paper, but the limitations of trying to apply visual detection theory to the complex task of a vehicle driver are explained. Finally, an outline is given of a practical approach to studying the relation between road lighting and accidents, with some details of the techniques used to record and analyse the dynamic visual field of a vehicle driver. /TRRL/

• Corporate Authors:

  Association of Public Lighting Engineers

  78 Buckingham Gate, Westminster
  London SW1E 6PF,   England 
• Authors:
  • Marsden, A M
• Publication Date: 1976-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: p. 106-111
• Serial:
  • Public Lighting
  • Volume: 41
  • Issue Number: 175
  • Publisher: Association of Public Lighting Engineers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash rates; Drivers; Field of vision; Forecasting; Prevention; Safety; Street lighting; Visibility; Vision
• Old TRIS Terms: Driver vision
• ITRD Terms: 1661: Accident prevention; 2056: Field of vision; 545: Lighting (street); 1665: Safety; 6783: Visibility; 2066: Vision
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00153301
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL)
• Report/Paper Numbers: Analytic
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 13 1977 12:00AM