The contribution of vehicle lights in urban and peripheral urban environments

Abstract

In this study, the influence of vehicle lights on other drivers in urban and peripheral urban environments is evaluated in two perspectives. Initially, the contribution of car headlights to visibility of the road and targets located on the road is analysed, with and without street lighting. It was observed that the contribution of the street lighting was adequate for satisfactory visibility of the targets and the use of car headlights did not, under all circumstances, improve the visibility of a target on the road. In a second phase, the influence of glare from vehicle headlights on the vision of a driver was studied under the same lighting conditions. This was found to have an important negative effect on a dark night, so much so that an object located on a road can be hidden from the driver’s view when the driver meets a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Sivak M , Flannagan MJ , Schoettle B , Nakata Y. Field measurements of direct and rearview-mirror glare from low-beam headlamps. Lighting Res. Technol. 2002; 34: 101-110.

Sivak M , Flannagan MJ. Factors affecting discomfort glare from vehicle headlights. Proc. Lux Europa, Reykjavik 2001; 1: 51-53.

Sivak M , Flannagan MJ , Traube EC , Kojima S. Automobile rear signal lamps: effects of realistic levels of dirt on light output. Lighting Res. Technol. 1998; 30: 24-28.

Akashi Y , Rea M. The effect of oncoming headlight glare on peripheral detection under a mesopic light level. Proceedings PAL Symposium. Darmstadt University of Technology, 2001; 1: 9-22.

Sivak M , Flannagan MJ , Miyokawa T. Quantitative comparisons of factors influencing the performance of low-beam headlamps. Lighting Res. Technol. 2000; 31: 145-153.

AFE editor. Recommandations relatives a` l’éclairage des voies publiques. Paris, 1988.

Adrian W. Visibility of targets: model for calculation. Lighting Res. Technol. 1989; 21: 181-188.

Bacelar A , Cariou J , Hamard M. Current street lighting characteristics and visibility level. Proceedings CIE 24th Session, Warsaw, 1999; 1: 214-216.

Bacelar A, Lecocq J, Cariou J, Hamard M. Etude d’un modèle de visibilité pour le calcul des installations d’éclairage public. Bulletin des Laboratoires des Ponts et Chaussées 1999; 222: 23-30.

10.

Lecocq J. Visibility in road lighting—correlation of subjective assessments with calculated values. Proceedings 8th European Lighting conference Lux europa, Amsterdam, 1997: 22-36.