A Study on Driving Performance Along Horizontal Curves of Rural Roads

Several studies have indicated that road crashes are more likely to occur on horizontal curves than on straight roadway segments for a good number of reasons, the most important of which is associated with the driver's behaviour along the curve depending on his perception of the road geometry. However, the evaluation of the effects of curve features on driving performance still remains a critical issue for road safety and design. The main objective of this study is to investigate driver's behaviour and his perception of road curves, which is directly related to road safety. Specifically, the effects of some curve features (radius, transition curve, visibility, cross section) on driving performance are investigated through a multi-factorial experiment based on driving simulation. The driving speeds and trajectories of a sample of 34 drivers were statistically processed over 72 different curves distributed along three test scenarios. The main and interaction effects of the independent variables are described and discussed in the results section of this paper providing a significant improvement of the actual knowledge on in this field of research. In general, the results confirm that driving simulation can disclose the relationships between road design features and driver behavioural aspects that are crucial issues in creating a safer road infrastructure.