Evaluation of Effectiveness of Speed Reduction Markings on Driving Speed in Highway Tunnel Entrance and Exit Areas

Abstract

Tunnels are critical areas for highway safety because the severity of crashes in tunnels tends to be more serious. Controlling vehicle speed is regarded as a feasible measure to reduce the accident rate in the tunnel entrance and exit areas. This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of three types of speed reduction markings (SRMs) in tunnel entrance and exit zones by conducting a driving simulation experiment. For this study, 25 drivers completed the driving tasks in the day and night scenarios. The vehicle speed and acceleration data were collected for analysing and the relative speed contrast, time mean speed and acceleration were adopted as indices to evaluate the effectiveness of SRMs. The repeated ANOVA test results revealed that SRMs have a significant effect in reducing vehicle speed, especially in the exit zone. Colour Anti-skid Markings (CASMs) produced a more obvious deceleration in the entrance zone. In the entrance zone, a similar downward trend was performed in the situation of NSRMs and SRMs, but a lower speed occurred in case of SRMs. Besides, CASMs work better and cause an obvious gap of 10 km/h in daytime and 5 km/h at night compared to the speed without SRMs. In the exit zone, the present study supports the conclusion that the drivers are prone to accelerate. Our results showed that the drivers accelerated in case of NSRMs, while they slowed down in case of SRMs. Thus, SRMs are necessarily implemented in the highway tunnel entrance and exit zones. Our study also indicates that though CASMs result in lower speed at night, the Transverse Speed Reduction Markings(TSRMs) have a better performance than CASMs in daytime. The investigation provides essential information for developing a new marking design criterion and intelligent driver support systems in the highway tunnel zones.

Numerical Analysis of the Mechanical Responses and Transition Section Design of Pavement Structures in the Entrance and Exit Sections of Highway Tunnel

“…At present, scholars have carried out a lot of research on the entrance and exit sections of tunnels, which can be mainly divided into the following categories: pavement temperature fields [1][2][3], linear setting [4][5][6][7], brightness design [8][9][10][11][12][13], and operation safety [14][15][16][17][18]. Despite these studies, there are few ones on the mechanical response characteristics of the pavement structures in these sections.…”

Unsafe Behavior Analysis and Risk Measurement of Traffic Accidents in Mountainous Highway Tunnel

“…Owing to the particularity of traffic environments, tunnels have become the main spatial distribution points of accident-prone traffic sections, which seriously affects highway safety [4]. Compared with general roads, the death rate of highway accidents is twice higher [5], especially with the increasing frequency of traffic accidents in highway tunnels, which has affected traffic safety dramatically and caused significant social and economic losses.…”

Psychological Load of Drivers in Entrance Zone of Road Tunnel Based on TOPSIS Improved Factor Analysis Method

“…When the ambient luminance and luminance uniformity meet certain conditions, drivers will be able to adapt to the environment and identify objects more easily, thus ensuring driver safety. Studies have also found that when drivers approach a tunnel, at the entrance zone they experience a large difference in luminance, which causes a corresponding change in the driver's psychology, thus affecting their true perception of the tunnel light environment information and even leading to traffic accidents (23)(24)(25)(26). Therefore, it is necessary to represent the psychological reaction of drivers in the complex light conditions at the entrance zones of tunnels by multiple psychological indicators.…”