Influence Of The Traffic Signs And Markings As Well As Warning On Drivers’ Behavior And Physiology At Grade Railway Crossing

Train-vehicle collisions at STOP-sign-controlled grade crossings attract many concerns in China and across the world.Researchers have demonstrated that the cost-effective approaches to improve crossing safety are the redesign of signs and pavement markings as well as the application of in-vehicle audio warning.However,the discussion on the effect of traffic signs and warning is mainly based on drivers’ behavior and subjective evaluation,and their impacts on drivers’ physiology have hardly been discussed.The conventional signs,improved signs as well as the combination of improved signs and a three-stage audio warning were modeled in a driving simulation system and tested in both clear and foggy conditions.Driver’s behavior,eye movement and EEG characteristics had been collected and were analyzed with statistical method to explore the influence of improved traffic signs and markings as well as the audio warning on drivers.Besides,train status,gender and vocation were considered in the experiment design.From the perspective of drivers’ eye movement characteristic,it was found that in the scenario of improved signs as well as the scenario of the combination of improved signs and audio warning,the probabilities of fixating on the STOP sign and the left side of the track at least once increased,the distance to stop line at the first fixation in key AOIs was earlier and the total fixation duration were correspondingly longer.In the30 m range of the adjacent crossing,the repeated fixation probability of the STOP sign and the left side of the track increased and the typical visual search paths were broader.Results above indicated that the improved design of signs and markings as well as the audio warning had a positive guiding effect on the visual attention of drivers.According to drivers’ EEG characteristics,the results showed that drivers’ slow wave was suppressed and the fast wave was more active in the improved signs design scenarios regardless of whether the warning was added.Especially the relative power ofδ wave and β wave in the central region were significantly affected by crossing type.That meant drivers could maintain higher alertness in these two scenarios.The mean duration of two kinds of microstates decreased,and the frequency increased under the effect of the improved signs,indicating a rapid response and active state of driver’s brain in executive control and attention function,and the information transmission rate increased.From the driver’s behavior characteristics and its correlation with physiological characteristics,the results showed that under the effect of the improved signs design,drivers could approach the railway crossing at a lower speed,take deceleration measures earlier and more gently with the decreased maximum deceleration,no matter whether there was a three-stage audio warning or not.With the audio warning,the compliance rate was significantly improved,especially in the case of no train and emergency(train TTC was 4s or 7s),which was significantly higher than that of the traditional crossing.Crossing type had no significant impact on the minimum time to collision.From the correlation analysis of behavior and physiology variables,the compliance of drivers to the STOP sign was significantly correlated with more eye movement parameters,while the maximum deceleration and minimum time to collision,which could measure the risk of collision,were more correlated with drivers’ EEG variables.From a multidisciplinary perspective,this study systematically studied the influence mechanism of the signs design and audio warning on drivers from the characteristics of drivers’ behavior,eye movement and EEG.The conclusions can provide a certain reference for the setting of railway crossing traffic signs and markings as well as the vehicle audio warning system.There are 43 figures,26 tables and 123 references.