Title: A Driving Simulation Based Study on the Effects of Road Marking Luminance Contrast on Driving Safety

The paper presents a human factor study on the effects of road marking luminance contrast on driving safety. Through laboratory driving simulation experiments, road marking color, configuration, luminance contrast, driving speed, subjects’ age, gender, and their interactions were investigated. Being categorized into three age groups with genderbalanced each, thirty-six subjects participated in the experiments. Sitting on the driver’s seat in a stationary vehicle, each subject was presented with a series of digital video clips, which were recorded from actual nighttime driving under lowbeam illumination and later edited to show different levels of marking luminance contrast. The subject was required to make responses to the video stimuli based on marking color and configuration the video presented. It was found that subjects’ response time drop with the increment of road marking luminance contrast, but at different rates during different contrast segments. White markings are more visible than yellow markings. Driving at higher speed get faster responses. Older subjects take the longest responses while younger subjects take the least. Female subjects respond a little bit slower than males. To warrant proper responses and assure safe driving, the minimum contrast values for white and yellow road marking are estimated to be 1.1 and 3.3~3.5 respectively. When road marking luminance contrast values are below these thresholds, a repair or repaint on road markings might be needed.

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