Female and male driving behaviour on Swedish urban roads and streets.

Knowledge of male and female driver behaviour is essential when addressing gender issues in the planning and design of highways and streets. The objective of the study was to establish if there are significant differencesin driver behaviour in male and female drivers for a variety of Swedish urban street designs, environments and traffic condition. The comparative analysis was based on additional data extraction from an existing dataset. Behaviour data of male and female drivers was analysed through descriptivestatistics, multiple regression and comparison of speed profiles. The field study detected no significant difference between the free-flow speed ofmen and women on average. For a number of studied sites there was an indication of slightly higher female free flow speeds. Men and women had the same probability to be platoon leaders on arterials and urban streets. On suburban streets there was an indication that the likelihood for men to lead a platoon was slightly higher, although the data supporting this was very limited. On average male and female platoon leaders maintained the same speed (i.e. free flow speed). On average male and female drivers maintained the same time headway to the nearest platoon vehicle in front. On one investigated suburban street women drivers kept 0.2 seconds greater headway than male drivers (significant on 90 % level). In the driving simulator study, performed for urban street conditions, men had significantly higher free flow speed than women (2 km/h). For the event "passing an occupied busstop" men drove and average of 4 km/h faster than women. No difference inbehaviour between men and women was recorded for the event of "arriving at a crosswalk with approaching pedestrians". The conclusion of the field study was that Swedish male and female drivers differed only marginally in their speed and headway driving behaviour. The simulator study, which enabled "controlled experiments" for different traffic events, indicated some differences for specific traffic situations which should be further explored. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.