ABSTRACT
Reflection ............................................................................................................... 118 7.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 118 7.2 Roadway Design ........................................................................................... 118
7.2.1 Road Pavement ................................................................................. 119 7.2.2 Road Markings ................................................................................. 121 7.2.3 Road Environment ............................................................................ 122 7.2.4 Road Alignment ................................................................................ 123
7.3 Adverse Weather Conditions ........................................................................124 7.3.1 Adverse Weather Conditions and Accident Risk ..............................124 7.3.2 Behavioral Adaptation ...................................................................... 125
7.4 Public Lighting ............................................................................................. 128 7.4.1 Definition of Public Lighting ............................................................ 128 7.4.2 Freeway Lighting .............................................................................. 129 7.4.3 Rural Roads ...................................................................................... 130 7.4.4 Public Lighting and Driver Workload .............................................. 132
7.5 Driver Conflicts, Gap Acceptance, and Accident Analysis .......................... 132 7.5.1 Video Observations .......................................................................... 133 7.5.2 DOCTOR Conflict Quantification .................................................... 134 7.5.3 Practical Implications and Modeling ................................................ 136
7.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 139 7.6.1 Road Design ...................................................................................... 139 7.6.2 Adverse Weather Conditions ............................................................ 140 7.6.3 Public Lighting ................................................................................. 141 7.6.4 Conflicts and Accidents .................................................................... 141
References .............................................................................................................. 142
The main goal of this chapter is to provide an overview of the type of effects of road design, public lighting, and adverse weather conditions on driving behavior and traffic safety. This overview is far from complete, since decades of research and publications are available. Our main goal was to get the reader to understand the primary processes and provide a basis for further detailed literature searches or new experimental studies. The section about conflicts between road users and video observations illustrates that focusing on accident analyses is too limited. Observing behavior and conflicts is extremely valuable in understanding safety and traffic accidents, again offering the possibility to improve road design.
