A COMPARISON OF N. Z. WORDED AND INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL SIGNS

A 1969 STUDY DETERMINED THAT BECAUSE INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL-TYPE SIGNS WERE GENERALLY NOT VERY WELL UNDERSTOOD BY NEW ZEALAND DRIVERS, AN EXTENSIVE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM WOULD HAVE TO BE UNDERTAKEN IF MORE USE WERE TO BE MADE OF SUCH SIGNS. SUBSEQUENT EXPERIMENTS, REPORTED HERE, WERE MADE TO COMPARE NEW ZEALAND AND INTERNATIONAL SIGNS UNDER LABORATORY CONDITIONS WITH RAPID RECOGNITION, LEGIBILITY DISTANCE, AND ACUITY AS THE BASES FOR COMPARISON, BOTH BLACK AND WHITE-REFLECTORIZED BACKGROUNDS WERE USED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNS. FOR A NUMBER OF MESSAGES, PARTICULARLY WARNING, IT APPEARED THAT THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNS WERE SUPERIOR TO THE NEW ZEALAND WORDED SIGNS; HOWEVER, CONSIDERABLE VARIATIONS BETWEEN MESSAGES WAS NOTED. IT IS NOTED THAT INTERPRETATION TIME WAS NOT ASSESSED, AND THIS COULD BE OF CONSIDERABLE IMPORTANCE WERE A LARGE NUMBER OF THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNS TO BE INTRODUCED SIMULTANEOUSLY.

• Corporate Authors:

  Ministry of Transport, New Zealand

  38-42 Waring Taylor Street, P.O. Box 3175
  Wellington,   New Zealand 
• Authors:
  • Sanderson, J E
• Publication Date: 0

Media Info

• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 9 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Legibility; Road markings; Symbols; Traffic signs
• Old TRIS Terms: Word markings
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00226411
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 2 1973 12:00AM