On behalf of the Research Academy for Cognition, Brain and Behaviour, I would like to kindly invite you to join us for a lecture entitled “Designing Safe Road Systems”, provided by Professor Jan Theeuwes from the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on March 7 at 12:00 noon.
About the speaker:
Professor Theeuwes is well known as a highly successful research professor in the field of visual attention (he was elected member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science (KNAW) in 2010, received two European Research Council (ERC) Advanced grants of 2.5 million euro each (2012-2019), and his research has had a large impact on the research community (H-index 94; > 40000 citations)). Importantly, before becoming a professor at the Free University in Amsterdam in 1999, Jan Theeuwes worked at the TNO Human Factors Institute in the traffic behaviour group, conducting human factors research for various national and international government agencies, and automotive companies. In 1995 he published a paper in which he suggested a new approach to road design known as “Self-Explaining Roads”, indicating that roads should be designed in such a way that road users immediately know how to behave and what to expect on these roads. This notion has become the leading principle in road design worldwide. Jan Theeuwes has been a principal advisor to the Dutch Department of Transportation (DOT/RWS) on road design issues, and he was one of the authors of the book “Designing Safe Road Systems” (2012), which is used as a handbook at many DOTs worldwide.
About the talk:
Since its publication in 1995, Self-Explaining Roads (SER) has become one of the leading principles in road design worldwide. The underlying notion is that roads should be predictable and designed in such a way that road users immediately know how to behave and what to expect on these roads. In other words, the road environment should match the road users’ expectations triggering safer behavior, adequate speed choice, adequate manoeuvres, and optimal interactions with other users. In this talk, I will discuss the theoretical basis for the idea of SER and explain why it is crucial to design roads that fit expectations of the road users. A recent study investigated the effects of the lay-out of the road environment (the presence or absence of particular road elements) on what drivers considered to be a credible driving speed. Consistent with the principles of SER, this study shows that road categorization and the associated estimation of a credible speed is fast, operating within a single glance and is impacted by the road elements present in the environment. I outline a method that may be a valuable tool in road design, as it can estimate the impact of the road layout on driving speed.
Venue:
The talk will be in-person, on Thursday, March 7 at 12:00 noon in KG-U-208. This is on the second floor of U-block (the clinic building), at QUT Kelvin Grove on Musk Avenue. For those unable to attend in person, it will be possible to attend via Zoom (see details below).
There will be an opportunity to meet with Prof Theeuwes after the talk. If you are interested to discuss your work with him, please let me know by replying to this email and I will put together a schedule.
I would like to invite you to share this invitation within your networks, and with any interested stakeholders and/or industry partners.
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Zoom details below:
Meeting ID: 856 8433 8855
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://qut.zoom.us/j/85684338855?pwd=ZUxhTEJJeDZkcjJkVjFHQ0tCb3JuZz09
Details:
| Location: | KG-U-208 |
| Start Date: | 07/03/2024 [add to calendar] |
| Start Time: | 12:00 |
| End Date: | 07/03/2024 |
| End Time: | 13:00 |