The safety of a traffic engineering measure depends partly on the complexity of the task which the road user must ultimately perform. The more complex this task becomes, the greater the probability of error as the user is subjected to time pressure. It is likely that errors, and therefore also complexity, are related to road hazard. A method has been developed and applied to enable the complexity of the road user's task to be determined. Background, rationale and methodology are described in the chapter entitled 'an analysis of the design of engineering measures (intended user behaviour)' which examines behaviour as envisaged in response to this design. This method does not offer an impression, however, of how the road user utilises the measures in practice. In order to observe this behaviour systematically, a second method has also been described under the heading 'the observation of flow patterns (actual user behaviour)'. Both methods can be combined, in order to examine whether actual road behaviour and the encounters between road users conform to the expectations of the designers of traffic engineering measures.
Samenvatting