Human Factors In Traffic Safety

This comprehensive 2nd edition covers the key issues that relate human behavior to traffic safety. In particular it covers the increasing roles that pedestrians and cyclists have in the traffic system; the role of infotainment in driver distraction; and the increasing role of driver assistance systems in changing the driver-vehicle interaction.

Introducing readers to the behavior of drivers, this title covers a wide variety of perspectives on human factors, ranging from the design of roads, vehicles, and traffic control devices to emotional and motivational determinants of driver behavior. This new edition has been extensively revised and contains new chapters on driver education and driver distraction.

The UR:BAN MV project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy BMWi focused specifically on the user of future vehicle assistance and information systems. In the case of advanced driver assistance systems for urban areas, the primary emphasis is safety in combination with efficiency and comfort. Research institutes and automotive industry have investigated human-vehicle interaction and behaviour of different traffic participants.This book gives a unique and comprehensive insight into the results. Driver assistance and information systems were optimized for use in urban settings. Furthermore, innovative test regimes for controllability testing and new evaluation techniques like networked simulators and virtual reality test-beds are described including statistical methodologies.

Many books focus on individual differences and how those relate to traffic safety such as accident proneness, gender differences, age, alcohol, and the effects of drugs. Others focus on the safety effects regarding the vehicle such as airbags, anti-lock brakes, navigation systems, intelligent cruise control and other new gadgets coming to the vehicle. Even though these topics are undoubtedly important for traffic safety, this book takes a unique approach as it focuses solely on the road environment. Designing Safe Road Systems provides the background for those who want to know more about the effects of road design on driving behaviour. It uses a systems approach to allow a better understanding of why and in what circumstances drivers may commit errors. This understanding will ultimately lead to road systems that prevent (fatal) errors from occurring. The book contains an overview of the current models and theories about human performance and human behaviour in traffic that are relevant for all those involved in designing safe road systems. The central theme of this book is how design principles can reduce the probability of an error while driving. The authors demonstrate how knowledge of human factors helps a road authority to better understand how road users behave. They argue that in many cases the design of the environment can be further adjusted to human capabilities, and that safety should be considered a system property to be built into the road system.

Human Factors in Traffic Safety for Highway and Traffic Engineers provides human factors principles and findings for highway and traffic engineers, to allow the non-expert in human factors to bring consideration of the road user’s capabilities and limitations more effectively into the practice of design, operations, and safety. It provides data and insights from the scientific literature on the needs, capabilities, and limitations of road users, including perception and effects of visual demands, cognition, and influence of expectations on driving behavior. It bridges the gap between human factors research and practical application, presenting complex psychological insights in an accessible manner. The book begins with part 1 explaining the significance of the traffic safety problem and giving an overview of the importance of human factors in highway design and traffic engineering. Part 2 focuses on different issues of driver information perception and processing, including driver perception of depth and speed, driver’s visual search, how road users search for information, and how mental and information load affects drivers’ performance. Part 3 provides results of investigations of traffic crash causation and reviews major driver errors. In addition, special chapters describe the research particularly focused on human factors issues in the major crash types: rear-end collisions, angle collisions, and lane departure crashes. Part 4 then describes key principles of road users’ considerations during highway design and traffic operation. Finally, Part 5 focuses on safety analysis and assessment, as well as describing in detail the existing methods to evaluate human factors during safety assessments. Professionals in the fields of highway and traffic engineering as well as researchers, policymakers, urban planners, and students will all find this a valuable resource for better understanding how human factors contribute to traffic incidents and how these can be mitigated through design and operational strategies.

This is a new book on human factors related to traffic safety and is divided into four major parts, with chapters as follows: Part 1: The Driver consists of eight chapters: Perception and Information Processing; Driver Perception-Response Time; Where Do Drivers Look While Driving (and for How Long?); Individual Differences; Fatigue and Driving; Alcohol and Drugs; Age Differences-Drivers Old and Young; Neuropsychological, Medical and Psychiatric Disorders Affecting Motor Vehicle Operations. Part 2: The Vehicle consists of two chapters: Vehicle Design; Visibility with Motor Vehicle Headlights. Part 3: The Roadway Environment consists of four chapters: Roadway Design; Traffic Control Devices, Visibility under Roadway Lighting; Environmental Factors. Part 4: Accident Causation and Remediation consists of seven chapters: Railroad Grade Crossing Accidents, Highway Work Zones, Pedestrians and Bicyclists, Left Turn and Gap Acceptance Crashes, Single-Vehicle Accidents; Why Witnesses to Accidents Make Mistakes-The Cognitive Psychology of Human Memory; Human Factors in Traffic Accident Litigation.

"This book's title has two parts, "Roadway Human Factors" and "From Science To Application." The first describes its major goal: to analyze driver behavior, especially the causes and avoidance of collisions. In most general terms, the goal is largely to answer a single question: "Why didn't the driver respond sooner?" The cause of most collisions lies in the answer. The book's perspective is psychological. It views roadway events through the eyes of the driver. This contrasts with the third-party god's eye view that appears in accident reconstruction diagrams and other analyses which are primarily based in physics and cookbook science. Physics cannot be ignored, but roadway events can only be explained by examining driver psychology. Drivers act based on their perceived reality which differs from the physical reality of the accident reconstruction diagram. The second part announces its method: the application of scientific research. Specifically, the science in question is experimental psychology. Much of this book reads like an introductory text on experimental psychology, albeit with a distinctly applied slant. This is necessary. There are frequent misunderstandings about the definition of human factors. It is best described as a branch of experimental psychology. Human factors applies experimental psychology data to guide the design of objects and environments so that they that fit human abilities and are easy and safe to use. This book's underlying thesis is that knowledge of the science is a necessary but not sufficient condition for understanding roadway human factors. The key word in the title is "From" because there is a catch-22. Controlled research has inherent characteristics which differ from real-world conditions. Scientific research is generally conducted in highly simplified and artificial situations with unrepresentative subjects and drivers. Scientific research data cannot then be directly applied to the real-world. The step from science to application is far greater than many imagine, probably because there are so few who are well versed in both. The book also introduces areas of science that are unfamiliar to most who investigate collisions. "Ecological optics" is a discipline of perceptual psychology that is key in understanding vehicle guidance and collision avoidance. "Visual psychophysics" is the psychological science that underlies visibility and all other sensory judgments. "Operant learning" is the psychological science of adaptability and behavior change based on the consequences of action. The book also introduces more specific concepts that are important but seldom figured into collision analysis. These include notions such as affordances and action boundaries, system tolerances, crowding, and response conflicts"--