vms challenges: current and foreseeable policy responses · use vms following hygienic norms •...
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VMS challenges: current and foreseeable policy responses
Antonio Lucas-Alba
University of Zaragoza /
DGT
Contents
• Current challenges: their origins – Road signs: 1909-1968 – Variable Message Signs: the 1980s
• Issues concerning VMS harmonization – Making the most of hybrid road signs
• Using VMS following hygienic norms – Easyway VMS-DG01 – WP.1 R.E. 2
• Finding elements and structures for hybrid VMS: empirical endeavor
– Back to the future • A “new” display is coming • The visuospatial approach
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Origins
• On the main, the 1968 Convention is a visual communication system based on shapes and contents whose meaning is not word dependent
• It was developed mixing different European wisdoms concerning visual communication
• British wisdom: let us shape be the framing element
• Continental wisdom: let us inner elements be the ones specifying what’s going on, preferably: – Not words
– Not arbitrary visual signs
– But iconic/symbolic signs
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Origins
Shapes will frame danger, regulatory, informative displays
Inner elements will indicate what is actually going on
• Otto Neurath (1936): “words make divisions, pictures make connections”
• British shapes will frame visual information, not words
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The 1980s
Electronic aids
• New strategies for fighting accidents and congestion develop in the 1970s and 1980s under the COST umbrella
• New telematics tools, among them VMS, should help optimize road safety and mobility
• But display technologies are then somehow unreliable and expensive
Rotating matrix, bulbs and early LED
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The 1980s
Electronic aids
• New strategies for fighting accidents and congestion develop in the 1970s and 1980s under the COST umbrella
• New telematics tools, among them VMS, should help optimize road safety and mobility
• But display technologies are then somehow unreliable and expensive
Rotating matrix, bulbs and early LED
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Picto-word hybrid road signs are born
Melyssa Project, 1995 7
Posted VS VMS
Posted road signs
• Mainly based on visual code
• We read road signs following a holistic interpretation of pictures
• Road signs are international
• Posted signs mainly focus on traffic realities that are visible at glance (a deer, a curve, a bridge…)
• Focused on route perspective
Hybrid VMS
• Mainly based on verbal code
• We read VMS following juxtaposition and adjacency, i.e., as we read text
• Road signs are national at best
• VMS offer realities you may not see at glance (a congestion between two cities, a rerouting scheme, dense traffic in a different road)
• Focused on both route and survey (bird’s eye) perspective
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Issues concerning VMS harmonization: making the most of current hybrid road signs
References: FIVE (2003), WP.1 RE.2 (2009), VMS-DG01 (2012)…
1. Use VMS following “hygienic” norms (i.e., norms that foster both ergonomic and international approach)
2. Improve the code: finding elements and structures for hybrid VMS (empirical endeavor)
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1. Use VMS following “hygienic” norms
• RE.2 (2010): Look at pages 17-18 “rules for message content and message structure for VMS”
• VMS-DG01 (2012): Look at pages 13-24.
… VMS on high speed roads should not display more than 4 information units per message… the meaning of a pictogram should not also be shown in text in a VMS message… alternating messages on VMS should be avoided… blinking and scrolling effects should be avoided on VMS… specific pictograms should have priority over generic ones… and the like
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Empirical search for signing elements and structures
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Main empirical enquiries: data • 2006-7. 8 countries (ES, FR, IT, NL, PT, SE, RI+UK ).
N= 4,223 drivers.
• 2010. 10 countries (DK, ES, FR, GR, IT, PT, NL, SL, SE, UK).
N = 7,789 drivers
• 2011. 12 countries (CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GR, IT, PT, NL, SL, SE, UK)
N =10,308 drivers.
• 2013. 12 countries. In progress (data from NL, SE, ES collected)
3.2. Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
Removing the red triangle: comprehension and “danger”
94.4%
99.1%
99.0%
89.8%
96.8%
93.7%
93.4%
90.2%
32.6% 33.9% 55.7% 56.5%
7.3% 3.2% 14.9% 14.7%
2010
Removing some parts of existing road signs
UNECE
“Danger should be dangerous”
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3.2. Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
• Topographical pictograms
Topographical pictograms: events at exit
The simple ones well above 66% (ISO standard)
Changing some parts of existing road signs
UNECE
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Topological signs concerning exits
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Topographical pictograms: events at main trunk
Just the regulatory, simple one above 66% (ISO standard)
Changing some parts of existing road signs
UNECE
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Topological signs concerning main road
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Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
• Topographical pictograms
• Exit
Exit
76.6%
65.7%
65.4%
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Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
• Topographical pictograms
• Exit
• Miscellanea
Miscellanea
94.6% 94.7% 51.9% 70.7%
5.1% 66.0%
76.5%
71.0% 68.6% 45.8%
83.7% 86.4% 51.5%
Creating new road signs
UNECE
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Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
• Topographical pictograms
• Exit
• Miscellanea
• Coupling pictograms: truck-parking, rain-speed limit, fog-speed limit
Coupling pictograms
94.6%
88.1% 85.4%
82.5%
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Main empirical enquiries (and design strategies):
• Removing the red triangle
• Topographical pictograms
• Exit
• Miscellanea
• Coupling pictograms: truck-parking, rain-speed limit, fog-speed limit
• Events location: between A and B, up to A, after B
Combining informative elements – the location issue
• Constrains: pictogram on the left, 3 lines and 15 characters per line
• Assumptions:
– People reading from left to right and top-bottom
– Following patterns already present in fixed traffic panels
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Combining informative elements – the location issue
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Event location: between A and B
65.1%
68.5%
59.9%
(56.9%)
79.8%
(65.8%)
Integrating road signs
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Comprehension Test 2006-2007 (7 countries)
65.1% (N=678) 57.9% (N=1548) 57.6% (N=692) 55.4% (N=1213)
Comprehension Test 2010 (10 countries)
48.9% (N=1175) 68,5% (N=1175) 60.4% (N=1175) 61.5% (N=1175)
Comprehension Test 2011 (11 countries)
56.3% (N=1676) 79.8% (N=1747) 69.4% (N=1642) 71.7% (N=1532)
Issues on VMS design: combining informative elements – from A to B
45.6% (N=1722) 24.6% (N=1260) Joint Belgium-UNECE workshop. Brussels,
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Event location: up to A
68.5%
56.5%
(39.1%)
80.8%
(66.9%)
Integrating road signs
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Comprehension Test 2006-2007 (7 countries)
56.5% (N=1591)
Comprehension Test 2010 (9 countries)
37.4% (N=1238) 21.2% (1132) 38.6% (N=1238) 41.1% (N=1238)
Comprehension Test 2011 (11 countries)
68.9% (N=1702) 80.8% (N=1584) 73.1% (N=1532) 58.7% (N=1702)
Issues on VMS design: combining informative elements – up to B
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Event location: after B
53.3%
68.5%
(48.0%)
(25.5%)
(6.5%)
Integrating road signs Joint Belgium-UNECE workshop. Brussels,
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Comprehension Test 2006-2007 (7 countries)
20.4% (N=705) 23.4% (N=714)
Comprehension Test 2010 (9 countries)
40.2% (N=1232) 53.3% (N=1232) 51.3% (N=1232) 52.4% (N=1232)
Comprehension Test 2011 (11 countries)
6.2% (N=1620) 35.6% (N=1520) 28.4% (N=1702) 23.3% (N=1520)
Issues on VMS design: combining informative elements – after B
18.4% (N=1620) 24.1% (N=1649) Joint Belgium-UNECE workshop. Brussels,
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Main VMS types nowadays (Europe)
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Way forward…
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Way forward…
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Way forward…
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Back to the future
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Complex road signs and iconic communication: lost in the middle 1980s
–the mixed picto-words road sign
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Iconic part Text, verbal part
“official” “complement”
“international” “national”
Haitz, R., Tsao, J.Y. (2011). Solid-state lighting: ‘The case’ 10 years after and future prospects. Phys. Status Solid A 208, No. 1, 17–29
“COMPLEMENT”
BUT ROAD SIGNS ARE
CONTENT ELEMENTS X DISPLAY POSSIBILITIES
• PICTOGRAMS (SYMBOLS)
• ABSTRACT ALPHANUMERIC
• NUMBERS
• TEXT INSCRIPTIONS
x
• KEEPING AN INTEGRATED, “READABLE” ORDER BETWEEN THEM
• PAINT COAT
• FULL MATRIX LED
• COMBINED HIGH (symbol) AND LOW RESOLUTION (text, inscriptions) LED
• LOW RESOLUTION LED (text only)
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X
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In 6 years now LED are expected to be optimally cost-effective:
shouldn’t we plan a careful migration to full matrix VMS (at least for international road nodes)?
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Recover a full visuospatial approach for international displays
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CONGESTION
ENTRE
TORREN
MADRID
CONGESTION BETWEEN
TORREJON AND MADRID
reality beyond language (world)
Verbal language (arbitrary text)
We should build road signs following structural analogies as much as possible (as we did in 1968)
MADRID
TORREJON
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CONGESTION BETWEEN TORREJON AND MADRID
MADRID
TORREJON
verbal language: juxtaposition and adjacency
MADRID
TORREJON ↑
MADRID
TORREJON
MADRID
TORREJON
visual language: holistic analogues
From…
…to…
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Thanks a lot for your attention