Research Conducted at Hasselt University (UHasselt) Has Provided New Information about Risk Management (Investigating the Effect of Marking and Delineation Treatments On Driver Behavior At Highway Exit Gore Areas): Risk Management

2021 NOV 17 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Risk Management. According to news reporting originating from Hasselt, Belgium, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “ABS T R A C T Highway exit gore areas are common and essential components of highway networks everywhere. Drivers need to navigate, decelerate, and change lanes at exit gore areas through specified and compacted geometry.”

Financial support for this research came from Flemish Agency for Roads Traffic.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Hasselt University (UHasselt), “This makes exit gore areas potentially crash-prone locations. Studies analyzed factors contributing to crashes at exit gore areas. Although marking and delineation techniques can play a major role in enhancing safety, traffic control devices that serve this end were not given sufficient attention in recent research. Furthermore, the currently used marking and delineation treatments are widely different around the world and deploy devices of various forms, shapes, sizes, and colors. The Flemish Agency for Roads & Traffic (AWV) launched a study to explore the feasibility of adding colored and sizeable eye-catching objects, mounted or grounded exactly at the physical nose, to attract driver’s attention and improve driving performance. The eye-tracking and driving behavior of 49 Belgian drivers was investigated in a driving simulator. Participants were also queried about the conspicuity of the control devices and their personal preferences. The results were univocal for situations including a guardrail. Using two mounted panels together, i.e., the horizontal and the vertical, scored better on all levels than the horizontal panel alone. The bigger surface size of the traffic control device significantly improved driving performance and was also favored by the participants. Situations without a guardrail lacked such clear results, which were mixed depending on the measure at hand. A larger size of a grounded object-marker, again, improved driver’s performance. Findings concerning the colors red or green appeared to favor red, although this was less univocal.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “These findings are aimed to spark ideas for further research and to assist practitioners and policy-makers in better designing exit gore areas while achieving more consistency and safety.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Investigating the Effect of Marking and Delineation Treatments On Driver Behavior At Highway Exit Gore Areas. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2021;161. Accident Analysis & Prevention can be contacted at: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Accident Analysis & Prevention - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Veerle Ross, Hasselt University (UHasselt), Transportat Res Inst Imob, Sch Transportat Sci, Hasselt, Belgium. Additional authors for this research include Nora Reinolsmann, Amjad Dehman, Karin Van Vlierden, Wim Ectors, Tom Brijs, Kristof Mollu and Erik De Bisschop.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2021.106362. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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