• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.415-422
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• 2019

Retroreflection of vehicle headlights, as induced by spherical glass beads, is a key optical phenomenon that provides road-surface markings with greatly enhanced visibility, thus better securing a driver's safety in the nighttime as well as in unclear daytime. Retroreflectance of glass beads is a quite sensitive function of their refractive index, so that measurement of the refractive index of glass specifically in the shape of spherical beads needs to be performed within a reasonable uncertainty that is tolerable for road-marking applications. The Becke line method has been applied in assessing refractive index of such glass beads as e.g. an industrial standard in the Republic of Korea; however, the reference refractive-index liquids are not commercially available these days for refractive index greater than 1.80 due to the toxicity of the constituent materials. As such, high-refractive-index glass beads require an alternate method, and in this regard we propose a practically serviceable technique with uncertainty tantamount to that of the Becke line method: Based on comparison of calculated and measured retroreflectance values of commercial glass beads, we discover that their refractive index can be determined with reasonable precision via the retroreflectance measurement. Specifically, in this study the normalized retroreflectance originating from a single glass sphere is computed as a function of refractive index using the Fresnel equations, which is then validated as coinciding well with retroreflectance values measured from actual specimens, i.e. glass-bead aggregates. The uncertainties involved are delineated in connection with radius and imperfections of the glass beads.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.47-65
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• 2014

VMS(Variable Message Sign) helps drivers to choose their path to destinations on roadways. Some types of VMS often provide traffic information with clearly visible and comprehensible graphical route diagrams. Currently many diagramed types of VMS are installed on urban arterial and highways. This type of VMS surely enhances drivers' ability to comprehend traffic route information while they are driving on the roadway. Nevertheless, some of them are presented with so much information and design elements and they sometimes lead to decline of drivers' comprehensible level for traffic information. Drivers would fail to decide their preferable route in this state of information overflow. The purpose of this paper is to develop a drivers preference model for effective design principle including size and height of displaying font, and the amount of information in the route diagram considering driving speed, sex and age of the driver. This model is developed using structural equation modeling techniques. This model considers driver's emotional factor and, human factor and design component of route diagram. To collect data, we built driving simulator which is able to replicate real driving condition. 72 people who participated in the simulation were selected considering gender and age. The developed model showed that the amount of information, and visibility are more influential factors to the drivers' preference of the route diagram on VMS than design elements such as the shape and the font of the diagram.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.6D
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• pp.549-556
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• 2012

Longitudinal tunnels are defined as tunnels with length of over 1km. Because of Korea's topographical conditions and as safety measures for linear design, many tunnels are inevitably being constructed in Korea. The number of longitudinal tunnels constructed on expressways amounted to 104 as of the end of 2010 with a total length of 192km. Given the increasing demand for tunnels and the increasing length of tunnels, a safety evaluation of longitudinal tunnels needs to be conducted. As such, this study selected design elements, transportation environment and delineation system as elements to check and tried to determine factors influencing road crashes. For this, tunnels have been classified based on history of crashes; ones with crashes and ones without crashes and statistically meaningful explanatory variables were selected. By using these variables, a logit model was development in order to better grasp the factors that directly and strongly influence crashes. The result, related to crashes as well as the analysis were utility tunnel interior materials of driving lane and passing lane, which are related to driver's visibility, lateral width widening to consolidate space in a tunnel, and annual average daily traffic (AADT) per lane. These results may be used in the future as analysis indicators when drawing up plans to prevent crashes in longitudinal tunnels.