Volume 86, January 2016, Pages 229–238
Highlights
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- Vehicle speed decreases after wildlife warning sign and radio message warning.
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- Strong deceleration and decreased velocity when encountering moose.
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- No significant interactions between wildlife accident countermeasures were found.
Abstract
In
a driving simulator study, driving behaviour responses (speed and
deceleration) to encountering a moose, automatic speed camera, wildlife
warning sign and radio message, with or without a wildlife fence and in
dense forest or open landscape, were analysed. The study consisted of a
factorial experiment that examined responses to factors singly and in
combination over 9-km road stretches driven eight times by 25
participants (10 men, 15 women). The aims were to: determine the most
effective animal–vehicle collision (AVC) countermeasures in reducing
vehicle speed and test whether these are more effective in combination
for reducing vehicle speed; identify the most effective countermeasures
on encountering moose; and determine whether the driving responses to
AVC countermeasures are affected by the presence of wildlife fences and
landscape characteristics. The AVC countermeasures that proved most
effective in reducing vehicle speed were a wildlife warning sign and
radio message, while automatic speed cameras had a speed-increasing
effect. There were no statistically significant interactions between
different countermeasures and moose encounters. However, there was a
tendency for a stronger speed-reducing effect from the radio message
warning and from a combination of a radio message and wildlife warning
sign in velocity profiles covering longer driving distances than the
statistical tests. Encountering a moose during the drive had the overall
strongest speed-reducing effect and gave the strongest deceleration,
indicating that moose decoys or moose artwork might be useful as
speed-reducing countermeasures. Furthermore, drivers reduced speed
earlier on encountering a moose in open landscape and had lower velocity
when driving past it. The presence of a wildlife fence on encountering
the moose resulted in smaller deceleration.
Keywords
- Wildlife;
- Collision;
- Mitigation;
- Measures;
- AVC
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