Road traffic management is an umbrella term. It encompasses all measures that (re)direct traffic flows over the road network, so that the movements of people and goods are optimised for reliability, safety and environmental sustainability. The levels of road mobility continue to increase year on year. In fact, the mobility demand is increasing faster than any increases in overall road capacity. As a result, developments in traffic management become increasingly important to accommodate demand. Traffic management is generally seen as linked to main arterial roads and involves motorised traffic, but it also relates to minor roads and non-motorised traffic. Traffic management consists of a variety of measures that are applied for multiple purposes. Modern technologies make current traffic management more dynamic and flexible and hence, in theory, more effective. Four clusters of traffic management measures can be distinguished: * Dynamic speed management: e.g., dynamic speed limits, variable message signs. * Local dynamic warning or informative systems: e.g., incident warning, local queue warning, weather warnings. * Local traffic flow management: e.g., lane closures, peak hour lanes, overtaking prohibition for trucks, merging measures, ramp metering. * Network-wide traffic flow management: e.g., dynamic route information, multimodal information. Traffic management measures aim to influence traffic flows over the road network. However, traffic flow consists of numerous individual road users travelling from A to B, so traffic management aims to influence human behaviour. Consequently, the effect of a traffic management measure largely depends on the capabilities or motivations of these road users to comply with the measures. If designed and applied without accounting for human factors, effective traffic management measures may not have the intended effect. Human factors in national or international legislation Some human factor aspects are explicitly taken into account and integrated into (inter)national legislation. For example, human limitations in vision and information processing are accounted for in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Road Signs and Signals and the European Agreement on Road Markings. These acts of legislation clearly prescribe the locations, size and material of signs and markings. However, beyond accommodating visual capabilities, there is minimal integration of human factors principles (such as decision making, behavioural adaptation, distraction etc.) into road traffic legislation. As a consequence, road traffic practitioners, including traffic managers, are not always fully aware of the important role played by human factors. This booklet targets national road administrations and their traffic managers. It provides concise information about the human factors in general and the crucial role they play in traffic management. This information gives a level of insight into how human factors influence the effectiveness of traffic management measures. The booklet presents: * A human perspective on road traffic management; * An introduction to the four key human factors; * A view on individual differences and unintended side-effects of these factors; and * Consideration of these factors in-vehicle traffic management information Background and sources The booklet is based on research performed in the CEDR project METHOD. The three resulting technical reports provide the scientific background as well as references to relevant documentation and research papers. Readers who are interested in the scientific background to this work are referred to these research reports: - Vissers, L., Stelling, A., Hagenzieker, M.P., Van Schagen, I.N.L.G. & Maerivoet, S. (2015) Human factors reflection on existing traffic management measures. SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, The Hague (NL) and Transport and Mobility, Leuven (B). - Aittoniemi, E. (2016) Human factors in traffic management operations — Best practices and recommendations. VTT Technical Research Centre, Espoo (FI) - Weare, A., Hof, T. & Moning, I. (2016) Driving simulator studies evaluating invehicle information for traffic management using head-up displays and gamification techniques. TRL, Crowthorne (UK) & TNO, Soesterberg (NL). Further reading suggestions are listed at the end of this booklet. (Author/publisher)
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