title: Behaviourally relevant road categorisation: a step towards self-explaining rural roads.
abstract: In contrast to motorways, rural roads are characterised by a large variation in design, appearance and function which is reflected in a comparatively large number of rural road categories. Depending on these categories, a certain (normative) behaviour is usually expected from the driver. These normative behavioural expectations are conveyed to the driver either by formal cues (e.g. speed limit signs) or are expected to be inferred from the road appearance or the affordance (Gibson, J.J., 1986. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale (New Jersey)) of the respective road situation. Unsafe situations are likely to occur if the perceived message conveyed by cues or affordances does not match the normative behavioural expectations of the official road category. In order to avoid such mismatch it is important to know how drivers categorise (rural) roads and which elements are used for this subjective and behaviourally relevant road categorisation. We therefore summarized the processes behind this categorisation in a model and conducted a study in a laboratory setting during which subjects were asked to rate a variety of rural road pictures. The study revealed that drivers distinguish between three different rural road categories which can be distinguished with comparatively few objective criteria. Applying these criteria helps to categorise and design rural roads along self-explaining road principles.
authors.affiliation: Dresden University of Technology, Traffic and Transportation Psychology, Hettnerstrasse 1, Dresden, Germany. gert.weller@tu-dresden.de
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Weller
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schlag
authors.forename: Tino
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Friedel
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rammin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003463:Cues; D004779:Environment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012424:Rural Population; D014796:Visual Perception