Effects of traffic infrastructure and road design on safe driving

One of the building blocks of the Dutch success in road safety is the Sustainable Safety approach. This philosophy specifies that road safety should be a design requirement in road traffic with a focus on the use of human characteristics as a starting point, considering both humans' physical vulnerability and cognitive capabilities and limitations. Roads are to be categorized according to their function and should be self-explaining as much as possible. Human factors should be included in the design process right from the beginning to ensure that the design meets fundamental human factors requirements. Following a brief general description of the driving task, of the cycle of human information processing, and of the levels of task performance, this paper will focus on some human factors rules to take the human as the measure of things in highway design and operation. An integrated road systems design should anticipate the potential occurrence of inadvertent aberrations. Situational awareness, workload, attention, road users' perception and collection of relevant information from the environment, and the role of road users' expectancy, are major human factors aspects to take into account for a safe road design. The effects of traffic infrastructure and road design on safe driving behaviour are illustrated by some examples (bad and good) to make road systems more resilient and robust against human error, and to make information carriers mutually consistent and uniform within their context. (A)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9783281219182
• Authors:
  • van der Horst, R
• Publication Date: 2014-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 49-55
• Monograph Title: Fit to drive. Proceedings of the 8th International traffic expert congress. Warsaw, May 8th-9th 2014
• Serial:
  • Schriftenreihe Fahreignung
  • Publisher: Kirschbaum Verlag

Subject/Index Terms

• ITRD Terms: 9001: Behaviour; 8525: Conference; 1855: Driving (veh); 2855: Highway design; 2257: Human factor; 2885: Layout; 8078: Netherlands; 8089: Poland; 1665: Safety
• Subject Areas: I73: Traffic Control; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01597279
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt)
• ISBN: 978-3-2812-1918-2
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Mar 22 2016 3:20AM