The purpose of the roadside warning and information system COMPANION - developed by BMW AG - is to improve safety by alerting drivers to incidents, disruptions in the traffic flow, congestion, adverse weather conditions and other unexpected events. Electronically equipped posts are located along the roadsides and warn drivers via a flashing light. COMPANION has been under trial since early 1996 on a motorway section near Munich. Within EU projects INFOTEN and TABASCO the system has been installed at two sites in Scotland and Italy. A common evaluation plan and detailed guidelines for a field trial have been specified. This paper outlines the results of a comparative European cross-site validation of the COMPANION system based upon the analyses of the three different test sites with the focus on traffic related impacts and user acceptance and their dependency on the specific local characteristics. (A).
Samenvatting