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Abstract
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Previous European research, i.e. COST 331 and the IMPROVER projects had demonstrated that road markings greatly increase driver comfort during dry night time conditions. Nevertheless, they highlighted the need for additional research under wet and wet and rainy conditions.
Building upon this research, the RAINVISION project has investigated over the last three years how road markings can influence driver behaviour under all nightime weather conditions (dry, wet and wet and rainy) and how different age groups and gender groups adapt their behaviour based on the visibility and retro-reflectivity of road markings. The project has carried out three different trials; i.e. a simulation trial in France, a track test trial in Austria and on-road trial in the United Kingdom in cooperation with local authorities. For the simulation and track test trials, more than 100 test subjects were recruited respectively according to three age groups (20-40, 41-60 and 61+ years) and took several trials during different conditions. For the on-road trials, 10 high-risk sites were selected in cooperation with Durham county and Type II marking materials were applied in these sections. The project subsequently monitored speed over a whole climatic cycle and undertook an accidentology analysis. The results of the study in general indicate that the presence of enhanced road markings did significantly increase driver comfort, especially for older drivers. While there was an increase in driver speed, it was not seen as safety hazard as it was compensated by greater preview times. In fact in the UK trials, the results show that the presence of enhanced road markings actually led to a decrease in speeds.
Language: en |