Modelling transport energy demand : a socio-technical approach

Peer reviewedPostprin

The effect of lighting conditions and use of headlights on drivers’ perception and appraisal of approaching vehicles at junctions

Use of Daytime Running Lights (DRL) is mandatory in many countries for motorcycles, and in some for cars. However, in developing countries DRLs may be optional or compliance low. The effect of car or motorcycle headlights and lighting conditions on Malaysian drivers’ ability to perceive and judge the safety of pulling out was investigated. Stimuli were photographs depicting either daytime or nighttime taken at a T-junction with approaching vehicles with headlights on or off. Headlights improved drivers’ ability to perceive cars and motorcycles in the nighttime photographs but not the daytime photographs, although this could be due to the bright weather in the photographs. Drivers judged it less safe to pull out when approaching motorcycles had headlights on than off, regardless of the lighting conditions, supporting the utility of DRL for motorcycles. Headlights did not affect judgments for cars, questionning the utility of DRL for cars

Hazard prediction discriminates between novice and experienced drivers

Typical hazard perception tests often confound multiple processes in their responses. The current study tested hazard prediction in isolation to assess whether this component can discriminate between novice and experienced drivers. A variant of the hazard perception test, based on the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique, found experienced drivers to outperform novices across three experiments suggesting that the act of predicting an imminent hazard is a crucial part of the hazard-perception process. Furthermore three additional hypotheses were tested in these experiments. First, performance was compared across clips of different length. There was marginal evidence that novice drivers' performance suffered with the longest clips, but experienced drivers’ performance did not, suggesting that experienced drivers find hazard prediction less effortful. Secondly, predictive accuracy was found to be dependent on the temporal proximity of visual precursors to the hazard. Thirdly the relationship between the hazard and its precursor was found to be important, with less obvious precursors improving the discrimination between novice and experience drivers. These findings demonstrate that a measure of hazard prediction, which is less confounded by the influence of risk appraisal than simple response time measures, can still discriminate between novice and experienced drivers. Application of this methodology under different conditions can produce insights into the underlying processes that may be at work, whilst also providing an alternative test of driver skill in relation to the detection of hazards

What do cyclists need to see to avoid single-bicycle crashes?

The number of single-bicycle crash victims is substantial in countries with high levels of cycling. To study the role of visual characteristics of the infrastructure, such as pavement markings, in single-bicycle crashes, a study in two steps was conducted. In Study 1, a questionnaire study was conducted among bicycle crash victims (n = 734). Logistic regression was used to study the relationship between the crashes and age, light condition, alcohol use, gaze direction and familiarity with the crash scene. In Study 2, the image degrading and edge detection method (IDED-method) was used to investigate the visual characteristics of 21 of the crash scenes. The results of the studies indicate that crashes, in which the cyclist collided with a bollard or road narrowing or rode off the road, were related to the visual characteristics of bicycle facilities. Edge markings, especially in curves of bicycle tracks, and improved conspicuity of bollards are recommended. Statement of Relevance: Elevated single-bicycle crash numbers are common in countries with high levels of cycling. No research has been conducted on what cyclists need to see to avoid this type of crash. The IDED-method to investigate crash scenes is new and proves to be a powerful tool to quantify 'visual accessibility'. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Linked injury data to estimate stratified numbers of road traffic casualties

Police reported road traffic casualties and Hospital patients of road traffic crashes were linked and filtered to patients with severity MAIS2+. -Some patients were not reported by the police, -Some linked patients conflict with casualties in their mode of transport -Some patients have missing values -Only for linked patients a region of the crash is present. The challenge is to make an estimate of the total number of casualties for each of the covariates present in this dataset, preferably with a margin. The dataset contains info for three years: 1994, 2009 and 2013 by Year, Mode_hospital, Mode_police, MaxAIS, ProvZH_hospital, ProvAcc_police, ExtCause, Gender, Agegroup, Number The sum of Number is 46884, distributed over the years and Linked=Yes/No: Year ------ Yes ------- No ------ Sum 1994 --- 9.975 ---- 6.988 -- 16.963 2009 --- 4.440 -- 10.446 -- 14.886 2013 --- 2.617 ---12.418 -- 15.035 sum -- 17.032 -- 29.852 -- 46.884 Especially in the last year the intersection between the two sources is small because of poor police reporting. The hospital file is assumed to be complete, although some patients after traffic injury do not receive a proper ExternalCause, so these can only be identified by linking

Aanzet voor de onderzoeksopzet in zones, waarin de 30 km/h-maatregel wordt ingevoerd. In opdracht van Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, Direktie Verkeersveiligheid, Dienst Verkeerskunde, afd. TXO.

Sinds 1 april 1983 is het mogelijk binnen de bebouwde kom een maximumsnelheid van 30 km/h in te stellen. Per 1 januari 1984 is het tevens mogelijk deze snelheidslimiet door middel van zoneborden aan te geven. Deze zonale werking geeft juist het karakter aan van deze 30 km/h-regeling, namelijk dat deze regeling bedoeld is als instrument ten behoeve van de realisering van verblijfsgebieden. Ook de voorwaarden waaraan de wegbeheerder dient te voldoen alvorens het bord '30' geplaatst mag worden, zijn : gesteld om die verblijfsfunktie aan te geven. Dit komt tot uitdrukking in de belangrijkste voorwaarde waarin gesteld wordt dat de aard en de gesteldheid van de betreffende wegen zodanig moeten zijn dat een maximumsnelheid van 30 km/h redelijkerwijs uit die omstandigheden voortvloeit. Indien dit niét het geval is zullen snelheidsbeperkende voorzieningen aangebracht moeten worden. Daarnaast zijn er voorwaarden die betrekking hebben op het doorgaande verkeer, het openbaar vervoer, het onderscheid met het woonerf, de bereikbaarheid, de zichtbaarheid van voorzieningen en het gevaar dat voorzieningen kunnen opleveren. De gevolgen van de toepassing van deze voorwaarden in de praktijk zijn nog niet geheel te overzien. Daarbij bestaat er nog onzekerheid over de mate waarin snelheidsbeperkende voorzieningen aangebracht moeten worden om het doel (snelheid 30 km/h of minder) te bereiken. Dit heeft tot het besluit geleid dat de 30 km/h-regeling de eerste jaren begeleid zal worden door middel van onderzoek. Dit onderzoek zal gebeuren bij een 15-tal in het kader van de Beschikking Rijksbijdrage Experimenten in Verblijfsruimten (BREV) uit te voeren demonstratieve projekten c.q. experimenten. Het streven is om in 1984 en1985 10 van deze projekten uit te voeren. In deze notitie zal een opzet voor onderzoek in deze 15 experimenten worden uitgewerkt, waarbij uitgegaan wordt van de doelstellingen. (Hoofdstuk 4). Uit deze doelstellingen zijn onderzoeksvragen af te leiden, welke vertaald kunnen worden in aanpak van methoden van onderzoek (hoofdstuk 6 en 7)