Designing Safe Road Systems

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.

This book focuses on novel design and systems engineering approaches, including theories and best practices, for promoting a better integration of people and engineering systems. It covers a range of hot topics related to: development of activity-centered and user-centered systems; interface design and human-computer interaction; usability and user experience; cooperative, participatory and contextual models; emergent properties of human behavior; innovative materials in manufacturing, and many more. Particular emphasis is placed on applications in sports, healthcare, and medicine. The book, which gathers selected papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Human Systems Engineering and Design: Future Trends and Applications (IHSED 2018), held on October 25-27, 2018, at CHU-Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France, provides researchers, practitioners and program managers with a snapshot of the state-of-the-art and current challenges in the field of human systems engineering and design.

NCHRP report 600 explores human factors principles and findings for consideration by highway designers and traffic engineers. The report is designed to help the nonexpert in human factors to consider more effectively the roadway user's capabilities and limitations in the design and operation of highway facilities.

"This report completes and updates the first edition of NCHRP Report 600: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems (HFG), which was published previously in three collections. The HFG contains guidelines that provide human factors principles and findings for consideration by, and is a resource document for, highway designers, traffic engineers, and other safety practitioners."--Foreword.

NCHRP report 600 explores human factors principles and findings for consideration by highway designers and traffic engineers. The report is designed to help the nonexpert in human factors to consider more effectively the roadway user's capabilities and limitations in the design and operation of highway facilities.

This roadside safety design package has been developed to satisfy a need for training in this area. It is hoped that all persons involved in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of highways will become familiar with the concepts contained in the program. The concepts and practices discussed come from those contained in the AASHTO publication, "Highway Design and Operational Practices Related to Highway Safety". They are discussed in considerable depth in this program and should provide a good working knowledge of roadside safety design. Much of the program is oriented around freeways; however, the principles apply equally toward the lower order highway.