A driver perspective-based investigation for lane line visibility of pavements on drivers' lane utilization behaviors

Abstract

There have been significant advances in vehicle safety and road construction in all over the world and driver misbehaviours are still shown as one of the most important reasons of traffic accidents. When the current traffic accidents are examined, the negative effect of lane line quality and level of visibility related on the accidents comes to the forefront in underdeveloped and developing countries. In this study, the effect of lane line visibility level on drivers' lane utilization was investigated in detail. For this aim, a total of 17 different points in Turkiye were selected and the lateral positions of the vehicles on the road surface at these points were determined with the help of the screen scaling technique. In order to determine the level of lane line quality for an expert group and driver perspective, a face-to-face survey was conducted. From the analysis results, the lane line quality was determined low in urban and intercity roads, and the average maximum evaluation score was determined as 4.7 and the lowest score was determined as 1.42 where the best line quality was 5. This result showed that the level of lane line quality had significant differences at different points. Although, it was observed that the lateral position distributions in the examined points fit the normal distribution, the distribution of both the right/left wheels and their gravity center skewed to the right or left and deviated from the ideal conditions on road surfaces. It showed that the vehicles do not center the lanes exactly, but usually move close to the right or left edge of the lane. This situation also clearly revealed that the lane utilization disciplines of drivers are quite weak with the effect of the low lane line quality on road surfaces.