01477673

Component

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of highway median design on driver stress. Two types of highway medians were considered, including a raised-curb median and a painted median. 80 drivers equally distributed between males and females across two age groups (i.e., 18-30 and 31-45 years old) were invited to participate in the experiment. Physiological changes in heart rate were measured and monitored before and during the driving tests. The subjects were also asked to rate their perceived stress level at the completion of each driving test. For divided highways with raised-curb median, the results from biometric measures as well as self-perception evaluations suggest that increasing the width of inner shoulder could help to reduce driver stress load. However, the authors found no effect from the width of the painted median, though this is probably due to low volumes of oncoming traffic during the experiment.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AND10 Vehicle User Characteristics.

01470560

13-4526

English

21p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Photos; References; Tables

Drivers; Highway design; Medians; Stress (Psychology)

Raised medians

Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-4526

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:52PM