HAROLD: HAzards, ROad Lighting and Driving

如果驾驶员能够在足够的时间内发现并识别潜在危险，采取制动和转向等规避行动，道路碰撞的频率和严重程度就会降低。检测时间的改进（以数百毫秒为单位）可以大大提高避免崩溃的可能性。天黑后，反应时间等视觉功能明显减少，道路照明的安装是为了应对这种视觉障碍。道路照明对于揭示车辆前灯照射不到的危险（例如从侧面出现的行人）尤其重要。英国政府认识到需要大幅减少道路交通碰撞，特别是涉及行人等弱势道路使用者的碰撞，并在2015年《英国道路安全声明》中承诺加强对这些人的保护。这个项目将研究如何使用照明来提高主要道路的安全性。具体来说，我们寻求增加驾驶员看到危险的机会并减少看到危险所需的时间的照明。这些危险包括其他车辆、固定物体和行人。目前的情况有两个问题。首先，虽然英国和欧洲的标准对道路照明提供了指导，但推荐照明的经验依据并不明确。因此，我们不知道他们是否推荐最佳条件。其次，我们怀疑当行人出现意外情况时，有更好的方法来增强对行人的检测，这种情况经常发生在主要道路上的行人身上。这就是行人应该使用一个脉冲或闪烁的LED带，戴在手腕或脚踝上，以利用生物运动。LED带可以提供一种低成本的应对措施，以降低事故的风险。为了研究这些建议，我们将首先进行实验，利用照明强度和光谱（颜色）的变化，找出对包括行人在内的危险的检测如何受到照明变化的影响。虽然司机应该不断地扫描潜在的危险，但有很多事情会让他们分心——听音乐、和乘客说话、看地图或数字导航设备。这些干扰会降低我们发现危险的能力。因此，我们还将研究分心如何影响危险检测，以及最佳照明是否可以减轻分心的减少。这项研究对老年司机特别有益；老年人的视力往往较差，总的来说，他们在分心驾驶时的表现比年轻人差。从这些数据中，我们将确定可能提高安全性的照明条件的变化。这些建议将通过在高保真驾驶模拟器中操纵照明条件来验证。模拟器将测试参与者置于更真实的环境中，同时仍然保持对道路情况的控制，并确保参与者的安全。为了促进结果的实施，我们将努力确保修订照明设计师使用的指导和标准文件，以包括建议的标准。

The frequency and severity of road collisions are reduced if drivers are able to detect and recognize potential hazards in sufficient time to take evasive action such as braking and steering. An improvement in detection time measurable in hundreds of milliseconds could substantially increase the probability that a crash can be avoided. After dark, visual functions such as reaction time are significantly reduced, and road lighting is installed as a countermeasure to this visual impairment. Road lighting is of particular importance for revealing hazards beyond the reach of vehicle headlights such as pedestrians emerging from the side. The British Government recognise the need for significant reductions in road traffic collisions, particularly those involving vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, and committed to enhancing protection of these people in the 2015 British Road Safety Statement. This project will investigate the way in which lighting can be used to enhance safety on main roads. Specifically, we seek lighting that increases the chance of drivers seeing a hazard and reduces the time taken to see the hazard. These hazards include other vehicles, stationary objects and pedestrians. There are two problems with the current situation. First, while British and European standards provide guidance on road lighting, the empirical basis of the recommended lighting is not clear. Therefore, we do not know whether they recommend optimal conditions. Second, we suspect there is a better way for enhancing the detection of pedestrians when they are otherwise unexpected, which is frequently the case for pedestrians on main roads. This is that pedestrians should use a pulsing or flashing LED band, worn on the wrist or ankle to take advantage of bio-motion. An LED band could provide a low-cost counter-measure to reduce the risk of accident. To investigate these proposals we will first carry out experiments to find out how the detection of hazards including pedestrians is affected by changes in lighting, using variations in the intensity and spectrum (colour) of lighting. Whilst drivers should be continuously scanning for potential hazards, there are many distractions - listening to music, speaking to passengers and looking at maps or digital navigation devices. These distractions reduce our ability to detect hazards. We will therefore also investigate how hazard detection is affected by distraction and whether optimal lighting can mitigate the distraction decrement. This research is of particular benefit to elderly drivers; the elderly tend to have poorer vision and, overall, they perform worse than younger people when driving with distractionsFrom these data we will identify the changes in lighting conditions likely to improve safety. These recommendations will be validated by manipulating lighting conditions within a high fidelity driving simulator. The simulator places the test participant in a more realistic setting while still maintaining control on road situation and ensuring participant safety. To facilitate implementation of results we will work to ensure the guidance and standards documents used by lighting designers are revised to include the proposed criteria.