• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.165-173
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• 2017

PURPOSES : The current practice in car headlight visibility performance evaluation is based on the luminous intensity and illuminance of headlight. Such practice can be inappropriate from a visibility point of view where visibility indicates abilities to perceive an object ahead on the road. This study aimed at evaluating the appropriateness of current headlight evaluation method. METHODS : This study measured the luminance of object and road surface at unlit roadways. The variables were measured by vehicle type and by headlight lamp type. Based on the measurements, the distance where drivers can perceive an object ahead was calculated and then compared against such distance obtained by conventional visibility performance evaluation. RESULTS : The evaluation method based on illuminance of headlight is not appropriate when viewed from the visibility concept that is based on object-perceivable distance. Further, the results indicated a shorter object-perceiving distance even when road surface luminance is higher, thereby suggesting that illuminance of headlight and luminance of road surface are not the representative indices of nighttime visibility. CONCLUSIONS : Considering that this study utilized limited vehicle types and that road surface (background) luminance can vary depending on the characteristics of the given road surface, it would likely go too far to argue that this study's visibility performance evaluation results can get generalized to other conditions. Regardless, there is little doubt that the current performance evaluation criterion which is based on illuminance, is unreasonable. There should be future endeavors on the current subject which will need to explore study conditions further, under which more experiments should be conducted and effective methodologies developed for evaluating automotive headlight visibility performance. Needs are recognized particularly in the development of headlight visibility performance evaluation methodology which will take into account road surface (background) luminance and luminance contrast from various perspectives as the former indicates the driver's perception of the front road alignment and the latter being indicative of object perception performance.