Research Trends and Results

Sharing knowledge for more effective and more
efficient traffic safety measures
KIMURA Yasushi, Research Engineer
OHASHI Sachiko, Senior Researcher (Dr. Eng.)YABU Masayuki, Head
Advanced Road Design and Safety Division, Road Department(Key words) Traffic safety measures, human causes of accidents, speed reduction structures
1. Introduction
Traffic accidents, which are a serious road traffic
safety problem, are caused by three elements—people,roads, and vehicles—and preventive measures aretaken from the perspectives of people, roads, orvehicles. But, even when a traffic safety measure istaken to deal with a road related accident factor, ifpeople do not use the road safely, the measure will not
be fully effective. And if the road users do not evenunderstand the purpose of the measure, it will bedifficult to gain their approval of its implementation.
So in order to introduce traffic safety measuresmore effectively and more efficiently, we areconducting research to share knowledge about thepurposes of traffic safety measure and methods ofsafely using roads with road users. This reportintroduces this effort.
2. Traffic safety measure and road users’ trafficmanners
Traffic safety measures on wide roads such asarterial roads include measures such as building
sidewalks or installing guard fences etc. to directly
separate vehicles from pedestrians, but on residential
roads for example, roads are narrow so measures thatcan be taken are limited. Therefore, reducing speed
from the road side or improving road users’ awarenessare major elements of traffic safety. We conducted aquestionnaire survey of the issue, “important ways toencourage traffic safety in this district” in one districtin Tsukuba City where residential road traffic safetymeasures had been taken, resulting in many of therespondents pointing out “reducing the speed ofvehicles” along with “improving users’ trafficmanners” (see Fig. (a)). And in answer to the question,“Do you think that demonstrating the purpose ofmeasures will result in users driving more safely?”,
more than 90% answered either “Yes” or “Probably”(Fig. (b) top), while in response to the question “Doyou think that the purposes and intentions of measures
are shown to users?”, only about 40% answered “Yes”
or “They generally are” (Fig. (b) bottom), showing
they believed that telling road users the purposes andintentions of measures will contribute to safer roaduse.
Based on the above findings, we will organize

Figure. Results of Questionnaire Survey of Local Residents(a) Important ways to encourage traffic safety(b) Purposes of traffic safety measures
knowledge including the purposes of measures,primarily traffic safety measures taken on residential
roads within the district etc., examples of dangerous
situations and traffic accidents that result from road
users’ carelessness etc., and safe road use methods thatwill avoid these situations, and we will prepare
documents to clearly communicate these kinds ofknowledge to road users in easy to understand form.
In the future, we will clarify and verify theeffectiveness of sharing this knowledge in districts
where traffic safety measures have actually been taken,
and at the same time propose this as one measure to
reduce traffic accidents (methods and tools forcommunication with road users to avoid trafficaccidents).