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The role of human factors in road design

Conference Paper · October 2015

DOI: 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2015.7390620

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 The Role of Human Factors in Road Design
Attila Borsos Sibylle Birth
Department of Transport Infrastructure Intelligenz System Transfer GmbH
Széchenyi István University Potsdam, Germany
Győr, Hungary sibylle.birth@ist-potsdam.de
borsosa@sze.hu

Hans-Joachim Vollpracht
Honorary member of the World Road Association
Retired Chair of PIARC TC 3.2
h_vollpracht@hotmail.com

Abstract—This paper investigates the role of Human Factors conscious driving actions (e.g. drinking and driving or a risky
in road design with a focus on road safety. In the first part of the overtaking maneuver). The focus of the paper is on the former
paper an introduction is given on the concept of Human Factors aspect.
in general. Then some basic principles related to traffic safety are
tackled. Finally, Cognitive Info-Communications as a possible
tool to improve driver capabilities is mentioned. II. BACKGROUND
The term Human Factors is a terminus technicus originating
Keywords—Human Factors; road design; road safety; road from industrial safety engineering in the 1930’s. It means a
user capabilities and limitations; subconscious driving mistakes number of psychological and physiological threshold limit
values and activity patterns in operating machines, cars and
I. INTRODUCTION other technical facilities [4]. Human Factors are typical
limitations of the perception system, information processing,
Road safety is gaining more and more attention worldwide
learning or decision making of all human beings.
- it is put at the top of the agenda not only in developed but also
in developing countries. In 2001 the European Union set its Human Factors are defined as stable, general human
ambitious road safety objective of halving the number of road abilities and limitations that are valid for all users regardless of
fatalities in the EU Member States in 10 years [1]. This age, culture or race. Temporary effects or circumstances like
objective has been renewed for another 10 years in 2011 [2] illness, alcohol, fear, aggression or traffic violation are not
and by the UN Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road considered as Human Factors. They are considered as
Safety. It sets out a mix of initiatives at the European and conscious behavioural factors and should be treated by
national level, focusing on improving vehicle safety, the safety enforcement, education or public awareness campaigns.
of infrastructure and road users' behavior.
Road networks are integrated in the transport system with
two main interfaces between the road users on one hand and
the vehicles on the other (Fig. 1). While the physical factors are
very well known by road and vehicle engineering since
decades, the driving behaviour was thought to be an issue of
road user training and enforcement only. However, it is
gradually becoming clear that Human Factors that rule the
driver-road-interface have to be taken into account to ensure a
sustainable road safety approach.
From an engineering as well as road accident
administration point of view it is generally accepted that in the
interaction of the vehicle, infrastructure and driver, the driver
related factors were solely to blame for around 50% of
accidents and the Human Factors are somehow involved in the
occurrence of accidents in over 90% of the cases [3]. From a
Fig. 1. The main interfaces of the road transport system
psychological point of view this approach, however, does not
differentiate between the subconscious driving mistakes caused
by the system (e.g. getting tired on a long monotonous straight
road section because of lack of contrast and low activity of the
central nervous system leading to running off the road) and
 Accidents are the result of a long chain of events starting
with an operational mistake and – if not corrected – leading to
a driving mistake and – under bad circumstances – to an
accident. One cannot hope to fight human error effectively
without and understanding of the processes that err, and of the
conditions that invite such errors [5]. The inappropriate design
of the road infrastructure neglecting the road user limitations
will result in latent risks that trigger operational mistakes and
accidents. The Human Factors concept aims at reducing the
probability of such operational mistakes.
A human-centered design and an integrated road traffic
system taking the human capabilities and limitations into
account can minimize both the occurrence and consequences of
the human error [6]. Dealing with Human Factors, however, is
a very complex issue that cannot be tackled only by traffic
engineers without the help of engineering psychologists.
In the recent years the Human Factors approach gained
more and more emphasis in road design. The Dutch Ministry of
Transport for instance came up with the so-called ten golden
rules of Human Factors to take the road user into account to
help road designers and traffic engineers to reduce the
probability of human error in road traffic [7]. These rules are
narrowed down into five domains according to [8][9]. These
are:
 characteristics of a specific information element (e.g.
messages on road signs should follow the ergonomic
principles);
 interaction between different information elements (e.g.
there should be no conflicting messages between traffic
signs and road markings);
 situational context (the road should be self-explaining
and do not contain elements that a road user would not
expect);
 traffic and the driving task (attention is given to the
Human Factors in traffic in general);
 characteristics of the road user (the rules refer to aging,
justification of and support for traffic measures and the
limits of communication).
The World Road Association published a report [10] in
which the Technical Committee C.1 “Safer Road
Infrastructure” investigated whether Human Factors are
incorporated in the national design standards. In this document
also three basic safety rules are laid down, these are:
 give road users enough anticipation, decision and
stopping time to adapt to new situations and to react in
time;
 design a reliable field of view to ensure appropriate
speed and lane keeping;
 manage drivers’ expectations and pre-program drivers’
driving actions correctly.
In the next chapter a few of these principles, especially the
ones related to safe road design (in other words the interaction
between the user and the road) are tackled.
III. SAFETY PRINCIPLES
A. Workload management
This principle is based on the Yerkes-Dodson law, an
empirical relationship between workload and performance
(Fig. 2). From a road safety point of view the horizontal axis
can be interpreted as the difficulty of the driving task and
performance on the vertical axis as the quality of driving. This
law suggests that a normal workload (driving tasks) leads to
safe driving. If the difficulty of the driving task is either too
low or too high, there will be underload or overload,
respectively.
If the workload is too low, e.g. in case of a long
monotonous road section with no visual stimuli, then due to the
low driving task demand the driver’s attention will drop and as
a subconscious compensation the driver will increase the
speed.
A high workload means having a demanding driving task
such as processing a great amount of information coming from
the roadside (e.g. excessive amount of traffic signs). The driver
workload depends on conditions defined by
 the road environment: the design of the road; in order to
reduce workload the predictability of the road
environment is important (self-explaining roads);
 the car environment: mobile phone use, handling radio,
children etc.;
 the driver: e.g. driving experience - for a novice driver
all aspects of the driving task may be demanding [9].
B. Balance and perception
The road with its environment gives a complex view to the
driver. A road user friendly design has to be perceptible and
avoid irritating the driver by optical illusions, eye-catching
objects, deceptive and distracting impressions. It also ensures
reliable lane tracking and appropriate choice of speed. A few
examples are given below.
a) Critical locations
A critical location in the road infrastructure is any location
that requires the road user to adapt to a new situation (e.g.
junctions, crossings, village entrances, motorway ramps etc.).
These locations should be perceptible by the road users, one
bad example is given in Fig. 3.
Fig. 2. Yerkes-Dodson law [11]
 b) Curves
The road user should have a clear view of the curve ahead
as well as an unambiguous optical framing, if there is any, in
the outer curve. This optical framing should be parallel to the
edge of the road as well as continuous (e.g. no missing
delineator in a curve) otherwise it will cause an optical illusion
(see next point) and give false information to the driver about
the shape of the curve leading to run-off the road accidents.
The combination of horizontal and vertical curves also
influences the road user behavior; a horizontal curve combined
with a crest curve would make the driver lower their speed as
they judge the curve radius to be smaller, whereas with sag Fig. 4. Optical illusion caused by a non-parallel row of trees [10]
curve it works the opposite way.
c) Optical illusion
Roadside objects and facilities such as safety barriers, rows
of trees, buildings etc. serve as lateral orientation cues for the
driver. If any of these for instance are not parallel to the road
edge, an optical illusion is present. In Fig. 4 the row of trees
converging to the edge of the road before a horizontal curve
gives the road user the illusion that the curve is farther away
than it really is. As a result he arrives at the curve with a high
speed being unable to navigate it.
d) Eye catching objects
Eye catching objects can disorientate road users and disturb
them in keeping the lane. A typical example is when a newly
built road deviates from the original alignment having already
existing roadside elements (e.g. rows of trees on both side)
(Fig. 5). In such cases new objects have to be added in order to
overrule these effects, in the particular case an embankment
and another row of trees in the outer side of the curve parallel
to the newly built road.
e) Detection of signs and markings
Reference [12] aimed at investigating the percentage of Fig. 5. Rows of trees as eye-catching objects in a curve (left – before, right –
road signs perceived by passengers (not drivers!). The share of after) [10]
signs perceived was 91% on average, however, it has to be
mentioned that the only task of the passengers was to spot the
traffic signs. An eye camera study [13] carried out on the M1 TABLE I. EYE CAMERA STUDIES ON MOTORWAY M1 IN HUNGARY [13]
motorway in Hungary revealed which type of signs drivers pay Rate of
more attention to and which they tend to ignore (TABLE I. ). Objects
perception
These results suggest that overhead signs are more likely to be Variable message signs 91
perceived than vertical ones and also the perception of variable Overhead signs 58
message signs (VMT) proved to have a high share. Vertical signs (on the right side) 16
Vertical signs (on the left side) 4
Vertical signs in yellow background 80
Pavement markings 35

Fig. 3. Invisible junction [14]


Fig. 6. The 6-second rule [4]
C. Anticipation and orientation
a) Schemata
Perception can be based on two types of processes, the top-
down and the bottom-up process according to the cognitive
model developed by [15]. The former one plays a key role in
terms of anticipation. The top down process means that the
driver’s expectations depend on their past experiences. In other
words, if the driver encounters a new situation, the more
similar it is to a past situation, the stronger these expectations
will be. These expectations are higher order representations of
reality or schemata stored in memory. What representation is
activated depends on the perceived similarity of the actual
situation with the characteristics of the situation stored in
memory [16].
Schemata help to increase efficiency in driving actions, as
giving clear indications or stimuli to activate a particular
scheme will result in the desired behavior. In road design this
concept is called self-explaining roads.
A self-explaining road is a traffic environment which elicits
safe and consistent behavior among road users simply by its
design [9]. As a result, the road user is able to categorize a road
and immediately know what sort of behavior is expected. It is
also important, that the number of road categories should be
limited; in the Netherlands for instance they defined three road
types: through (such as motorways, express and by-pass roads),
distributor and access roads. Three simple and basic principles
of their design [9] are: easily recognizable, distinguishable and
interpreted.
b) 6-second rule
Approaching to a critical location (e.g. a junction) or
adjusting to a new environment (e.g. changing between road
categories) the driver goes through the following process:
 anticipation: identification of unexpected critical
locations;
 response: detection of the required behavior and adapt
to the new situation;
 maneuver: braking, slowing, accelerating etc. the
vehicle.
The time it takes an average driver to adapt from one traffic
situation to the next or to adjust to new requirements takes 4-6
seconds (anticipation-response time) (Fig. 6) [4].
Therefor it is not enough to provide the driver with a
section that allows sufficient reaction time of 2-3 seconds. The
design should also provide an anticipation section with a
minimum of 2-3 seconds to identify an unexpected or unusual
situation with more complex decision demands. In situations
that are more complex or involve higher speeds, it is
recommended that there should also be an advance warning
section with proper signing and instructions.
D. Choice and perception of speed
The main cue for speed perception is information derived
from the optic flow field, which is rather perceived with
peripheral than foveal vision [16]. In other words the driver
perceives speed based on the information (stimuli) present at
the roadside. By giving the road user the impression of a higher
speed in order to make them slow down, the environment
should be enriched with objects. For instance within built up
areas short urban spaces with roundabouts will decrease the
speed by influencing the drivers’ choice and widen their angle
of view for detecting the behavior of other road users
especially the vulnerable. Reference [17] pointed out that the
size of visual field is a factor, which significantly affects speed
perception and correct speed estimation is significantly reduced
when the size of the visual field and thus peripheral vision is
diminished.
Speed choice of the driver also depends on the field of view
as well as the fixation point. The further away the fixation
point is, the narrower the lateral filed and the higher the driving
speed will be.
It should be also noted that drivers tend to underestimate
the speed of other vehicles and overestimate the distance of
oncoming cars. This limitation affects maneuvers such as
overtaking or crossing.
IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper investigated the role of Human Factors in road
safety with a special focus on the driver-road interface. It is
clear from the above detailed principles and examples that
changing the road environment taking into account the human
capabilities and limitations can contribute to the reduction of
driving mistakes. However, completely excluding them is a
utopian imagination.
The interaction between the infrastructure, human and the
vehicle can also contribute to improving traffic safety. There
are already existing solutions such as the V2V (vehicle to
vehicle), V2I (vehicle to infrastructure) interaction, navigation
systems, driver assistance systems (ADAS), congestion
assistant, lane departure warning system etc. Cognitive
Infocommunications (CogInfoCom) as a relatively new
research discipline investigating the link between
infocommunications and cognitive sciences [18][19] offers
further possibilities. One of its key features is that its focus is
on cognitive capability, which means that rather than solely
focusing on ways in which humans, devices and ICT
infrastructures interact, the field acknowledges the notion of
‘cognitive capability’. CogInfoCom unifying both engineering
and human-oriented perspectives can give more room to reach
progress in traffic safety.
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