Assessing Distraction of Vehicle drivers in Europe

from Roadside Technology-based Signage

ADVERTS Minimising distraction

from roadside billboards

ADVERTS: setting the scene

Ingrid van Schagen, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research

11/10/2018 | Workshop

Why ADVERTS?

• Distraction is a major challenge for road safety:

• just a short moment of inattention can have serious consequences

• Many sources of distraction:

• activities: eating, drinking, passengers, calling, texting

• surroundings: a traffic jam, a nice scenery, billboards

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Roadside billboards

• Roadside billboards:

• More and more prevalent (?)

• More and more high tech and salient (?)

• Meant to capture attention of passers-by

• Hence, a potential threat to road safety

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ADVERTS’ objective

• Compile recommendations for minimising distraction from

roadside advertising

• Looking at location, physical features, and content

• Based on scientific knowledge and evidence

• Aligned to current practices

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ADVERTS’ approach

• Review of scientific knowledge

• Inventory of current practices

• Draft recommendations

• Input from users

• Final recommendations

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What do we know from research? Willem Vlakveld, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research

11/10/2018 | Workshop

Literature search

• Only scientifically sound studies

• Around 50 studies were reviewed

• Searched in: SCOPUS database

of Elsevier, Google Scholar and

the institutes libraries.

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Types of billboards

• Traditional Billboards

• Static Digital Billboards

• Video Billboards

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Effect on crashes

• 5 studies found on crash rates in the vicinity of billboards

• Only 2 of the studies had a rather strong design

• Results inconclusive

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Effect on gaze behaviour 1

• Drivers look at just around half of the billboards.

• Glance durations of 2 seconds rarely occur (around 2% of

the glances at billboards), but are very dangerous.

• Drivers look longer and more often at static digital

billboards than at traditional billboards. They look the most

often and the longest at video billboards.

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Effect on gaze behaviour 2

• Driver look the most at billboards close to the forward field of view,

but when they look, they look longer at billboards further away from

the forward field of view.

• Drivers look the most often and the longest at moments that

advertisements change (static digital billboards).

• Drivers look somewhat longer at affect-laden

pictures.

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Effect on driving behaviour 1

• (Almost) no effect on speed.

• Somewhat impoverished lateral control.

• Drivers miss traffic signs more often in the vicinity of

billboards.

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Effect on driving behaviour 2

• Reaction times are longer when a lead vehicle suddenly brakes in the vicinity of static digital billboards.

• Drivers tend to take slightly more risky actions directly after having passed an affect-laden advertisement (both negative and positive).

• Situation awareness does not seem to be affected by traditional billboards.

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Effect on driving behaviour 3

• Advertisements with large pictures and many text blocks

could affect the driving task the most (only one study).

• Drivers may react later on bright and large digital

billboards (only one study).

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Not found in the literature

• No studies found about the effects of billboards that look like road signs.

• No studies found about the effect of messages that encourage drivers to take risky actions, such as dial now and win….

• No studies were found about difficulties drivers can encounter when brightly illuminated billboards hampers the detection of road signs.

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Remark

Impossible to define distinct thresholds based on the

literature (e.g. advertisements should be exposed for at least

xx seconds on a static digital billboard).

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Current regulatory practices across EuropeStijn Daniels, Sofie Boets, Felix Vandemeulebroek

Vias institute

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Objective

• Collect information on existing guidelines, regulations, practices and trends on RsA in

CEDR-countries

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Approach

• E-mail survey sent to 26 CEDR member countries

• Initial response from 18 countries

• After processing sent again for verifying stated information

• Additional oral interviews PEB-countries (6) (BE-FL, IE, NL, SI, SE, UK)

• On-line information from AU and NZ

• Overview grid with information about 20 countries

• Placement criteria (longitudinal/lateral distance, vertical placement, viewing angle…)

• Design criteria (flashing lights, exposure time, transition time, quantity of information,…)

• Interview advertising industry

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General findings

• Level of detail varies greatly

• Restrictions on placement in all countries (e.g. minimum longitudinal/lateral distance…)

• Restrictions on design in about half of the countries

• Restrictions on sequences (5 countries)

• 2/3 of countries consider luminance (possible glare)

• Usually complemented with guidelines

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Permission procedure

• Procedure usually regulated

• Permissions not totally under control of road

authorities

• Criteria can be included in legislation or just in

guidelines (or both)

• Conflict of interest possible

• Criteria not always transparent

• Appeal procedures not always in place

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Rules or guidelines?

• Most countries have specific guidelines linked to RsA or (dangerous)

objects along the roads.

• Guidelines deal with assessment criteria

• Almost always complementary to legislation

• Advantages of guidelines as compared to legislation

• Possibility to be more detailed and nuanced than legislation

• Easier to adapt and to keep up to date

• Transparent document

• Advantages of legislation as compared to guidelines

• Solid framework

• Uniform interpretation of similar situations

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Trends

• Digital Out Of Home (DOOH)

• Possible consequences of DOOH on

RsA billboards:

• Multiplication of 2m² digital

billboards.

• Increase of roadside digital billboards

• Number of traditional roadside

billboards might decrease

• Potential contribution to development

of smart cities.

• One-to-one communication

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11/10/2018

Thank you for your attention

For more information, full reports, contact details, etc., see

https://www.cedr-adverts.eu

11/10/2018 | Workshop