Journal of Ergonomics
Open Access

Abstract

An Experimental Study on the Effect of Sequential Transverse and Lateral Markings on Perceived Speed on a Single-lane Straight Road

Yotsutsuji H, Kitamura K and Kita H

We focus on the vehicle speed inducement effect of sequence patterns of transverse and lateral markings on a single-lane straight road. We test the effectiveness of several sequence patterns through experiments with a driving simulator. The sequence patterns are characterized by patterns of progressively and concurrently reduced spacing of transverse lines on the road surface and lateral poles on the roadside. We examine the discrepancy between vehicle speed and speed perceived by the drivers under the influence of several sequence patterns, estimating driver-perceived speed using a hidden Markov model. Experiments show that (1) perceived speed tends to be higher than actual vehicle speed, except for patterns where lines and poles were equally spaced in all intervals or where spacing was greatly decreased in the middle intervals, and (2) in the case of a pattern where spacing was greatly decreased in the first intervals, vehicle speed rapidly decreased while the perceived speed remained high.