A Driving Simulator Study: Evaluation of Vehicle Mounted Attenuator Markings in Work Zones During Different Times of the Day

This report presents a study of driver perceptions using a driving simulator. The evaluation required one hundred and twenty participants from different age groups to drive through virtual highway work zones. During this experiment, driver reaction to VMA markings was determined based on their lane change distance. The drivers were also surveyed using a detailed subjective survey. Analysis of variance was performed to determine the significant variables affecting the lane change distance. For each time of day, a test was conducted to calculate the difference in lane change distance between the markings. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was carried out to evaluate the significance of differences between the lane change distance frequency distributions of the markings. For the subjective evaluation, the markings were ranked by participants indicating their preferences using four different criteria for each time of day. Additionally, the participants were surveyed on the features of the individual markings and for the most preferred marking. The results of the objective and subjective evaluations indicated that, overall, the red and white checkerboard pattern was most effective.