CEE 301

Highway Engineering

Lecture 10
Roadway Users/ Human Factors and Vehicle
Characteristics
Dr. Waqas Rafiq
COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus
Outline of Today’s Lecture

 Components of Traffic System

 Drivers Characteristics

 Field of Vision & Acuity

 Visual Reception and Hearing

 Perception-Reaction Process

 Vehicle Characteristics
Driver & Vehicle Characteristics

 Elements of driver, & vehicle characteristics influence

highway design and traffic control

 Together with the characteristics of the roadway itself,

these elements combine to create traffic streams

 Characteristics of road users and their vehicles have a

fundamental impact on traffic streams

Components of Traffic System
 Road Users
 Drivers
 Passengers
 Bicyclists
 Pedestrians
 Vehicles
 Private
 Commercial
 Street and Highways
 Traffic Control Devices
 General Environment
Driver Characteristics

 Driver Acquaintances in design, signing, etc.

 Familiar
 Unfamiliar

 Wide range of system users

 Ages: 16 year old to 80 year old
 Different mental and physical states
 Physical (sight, hearing, etc)
 Experience
Driver Characteristics
 Physical Characteristics
 gender, physical condition (drugs, etc.), mental
capabilities, skills.
 Tolerable Accelerations/Decelerations
 Longitudinal (along roadway )
 Lateral (around curves)
 Vertical (comfort)
 Information Processing Abilities : perception-reaction time
and expectancy
Driver Characteristics
Driving task – monitoring and responding to a
continuous series of visual and audio cues

Driving task at three levels:

Strategic – route planning
Tactical – vehicle guidance through maintenance of safe
speed and proper path
Operational – vehicle control through second-to-second
driver’s actions
Driver Characteristics
Selected elements of operational driving

 Braking and steering

 Signs/signals reading
 Car following (road sections)
 Gap acceptance (unsignalized intersections or lane
change)
 Dilemma zone (signalized intersections)
 Fields of Vision

Peripheral vision narrows as speed increases.100º at 20 mph

and to 40º at 60mph
 Visual Acuity
 Ability to see fine details: acuteness or clearness of
vision
 Measure of the spatial resolution of the visual
processing system
 Types of Visual Acuity
 Static (stationary objects):
 Depends on brightness
 Increases with increasing Contrast
 Time required for identification (0.5 to 1.0 sec)
Visual Acuity
 Dynamic (ability to detect moving objects)
 Clear vision within a conical angle 3 to 10º
 Fairly clear within 10 to 12º
 Key criteria in determining placement of traffic
signs
 Peripheral Vision: Ability to see objects beyond the
cone of clearest vision (120-180º )
 Age dependent
 Objects seen but details and color are not clear
Visual Acuity
 Normal Vision: 6/6 What does it mean?
 Can recognize a letter of approx 8.5 mm size from a
distance of nearly 6 m
 6/9, Person can read from distance of 6 m what a
normal vision one from a distance of 9 m
 Formula
 6/x vision will have to be times closer than normal
 Letter has to be times larger for 6/x vision person
 For example, 6/9 vision person can read 9/6 = 1.5
times bigger letters than normal from a same distance
Visual Acuity
 Visual acuity is 20/20 if a person can recognize 1/3 in
letter at a distance of 20 ft.
 Visual acuity is 20/x if a person can recognize the
letters at the distance 20/x times the distance
required by a person with visual acuity 20/20.
Visual Reception
 Color Vision: Ability to differentiate one color from
another
 Lack of ability = color blindness
 Combinations to which eye is most sensitive
 Black and white
 Black and yellow
 Key in determining traffic signs colors
Visual Reception

 Glare Recovery: Ability to recover from the effects of

glare

 Dark to light : 3 seconds -- headlights in the eye

 Light to dark: 6 seconds – turning lights off

 Usually a concern for night driving

Static Acuity and Letter Size

 Visual acuity is worse when an object is moving

 During night conditions, the visual acuity is one
column worse
Example
Hearing
 Hearing perception
 Ability to detect warning sounds
 Sirens, horns
Age

 Older drivers

May perceive something as a hazard but not act

quickly enough

More difficulty seeing, hearing, reacting

Drive slower
Age
 Younger drivers
 May be able to act quickly but not have experience to
recognize things as a hazard or be able to decide what
to do
 Drive faster
 Are unfamiliar with driving experience
 Are easily distracted by conversation and others inside
the vehicle
 Poorly developed risk perception
Drugs Influenced Driving
 Affects each person differently
 Slows reaction time
 Increases risk taking
 Dulls judgment
 Slows decision-making
 Presents peripheral vision difficulties
Experience

 Familiarity

Faster on familiar

Unfamiliar more distracted

Rental car on unfamiliar road at 10 pm when it starts to

rain
Weather

 Fog
 Rain
 Ice
 Snow
 Affects ability to see (snow, fog)
 Changes ability to stop (ice, snow, wet)
Fatigue

 Increases perception/reaction time

 Study by American Automobile Association found 221

truck accidents only 18.4% of the drivers had been

driving less than nine hours.

 Major factor in 41% of truck accidents in US

Perception-Reaction Process
 dr = 1.47(S)(t)
 where:
 dr = Distance traveled during PIEV process (feet)
 S = velocity (mph)
 t = perception-reaction time = 2.5s
Perception/Reaction Applications
 Decision sight distance

 Stopping sight distance

 Passing sight distance

 Placement of signs/traffic control devices

 Design of horizontal/vertical curves

Vehicle Characteristics
 Design vehicle (size and dynamics, turning radii,
maximum grades)
 Design speed (Speed, Acceleration Rate, Constant
Acceleration Motion, Braking on Grades)
 Traffic quality (lane width, number of lanes, design
volume, density, level of service)
 Highway safety (type of intersection, minimum radius,
minimum superelevation, stopping distance,
overtaking/ passing sight distance,)
Design Vehicles

 Design vehicle is the largest vehicle which represents

significant percentage of traffic at the specific section
of interest in the design year

 Design vehicles are selected from the wide variety of

vehicular types
Vehicle Characteristics
 Classifications
Passenger Cars (All passenger cars, SUVs, minivans,
Vans and Pickup trucks)
Buses (Intercity, transit buses, school bus…)
Trucks
Recreational vehicles
Sample Design Vehicles
Vehicle Characteristics

Three characteristics that affect almost all aspects of highway

design
 Physical
 Operating
 Environmental
Design Vehicle
Physical Characteristics
 Length
 Height
 Weight
 Width
 Center of mass
 Height of driver’s eye (car: 3.5’ – avg., truck: 7.6’ –
high side)
Design Vehicle
Operating Characteristics

 Acceleration
 Deceleration & Braking
 Power/weight ratios
 Turning radius
 Off tracking
 Headlights
 Friction