The influence of memory on driving behavior: How route familiarity is related to speed choice. An on-road study

• Published in: Safety science 2016-02, Vol.82, p.456-468
• Main Authors: Colonna, Pasquale, Intini, Paolo, Berloco, Nicola, Ranieri, Vittorio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accidental impacts; Drivers; Driving behavior; Foundations; Human factors; On-road study; Repetition; Road safety; Roads; Route familiarity; Rural roads; Schedules; Speed choice
• ISSN: 0925-7535; 1879-1042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2015.10.012

•An on-road experiment involving 20 users was conducted on a low traffic rural road.•Six days of testing were used in order to investigate into speed changes over time.•Results show that route familiarity is related to increases in speed over time.•Driver factors highly influence speed increases, while visibility is less related.•Drivers’ familiarity should be considered in practical matters of road engineering. Differences in driving behavior due to the presence of users familiar (or unfamiliar) with the road are considered in the road and traffic engineering. However, although considered, the matter is largely unexplored: there is a lack of theoretical foundations and data on determining the impact of route familiarity on accident rates, speed choice and risk perception. On the other hand, some literature studies confirm that route familiarity is influential on driving behavior, encouraging research in this sense. This paper reports the results of an on-road test carried out on a two lane rural road in the District of Bari in the Puglia Region (Italy) over six days of testing by following this time schedule: first four tests in four consecutive days, the fifth test in the ninth day after the first test and the sixth test in the twenty-sixth day after the first test. The main aim of the experiment was to find relationships between route familiarity and speed choice. In particular, speed data were analyzed by considering the influence of road geometry and human factors. The main finding is that speed choice seems to be affected by route familiarity: speed increases with the repetition of travels on the same route. The particular schedule used for the tests allows to consider the influence of memory on the speed behavior of the test drivers. Moreover, some relationships between changes in speed over days, road geometry and drivers’ attitudes were shown.