Effect of lane line visibility on driver lane choice and utilization behavior

The increase in population and developments in technology cause many problems such as the increase in the number of vehicles and traffic congestion. Transportation planners and researchers aim to help people lead a comfortable life by solving these problems in traffic. Especially in big cities, with the increase in population and increasing demand for transportation, serious traffic problems are experienced. These traffic problems also cause traffic accidents. Although significant progress has been made in vehicle technology and road construction, driver behavior is still among the most important causes of traffic accidents worldwide. There are many factors that affect driver behavior, including the visibility of lane markings on the road surface. Within the scope of the study, the effect of lane line quality named also as lane line visibility was examined on the lane utilization and selection behaviors of the drivers. For this purpose, a total of 17 different points in three different cities in three different regions of Turkey were selected and data were collected with the help of video camera recordings. Video camera recordings were analyzed with the help of screen scaling technique and the lateral positions of 4090 vehicles on the road surface were examined within the scope of the analysis. Again, in order to determine the level of lane line quality of these 17 different points, a face-to-face survey was conducted with 390 drivers with different characteristics and the results were modeled with the Least Squares Method. From the analysis results, for the path with the best line quality, the average highest score was 4.7 out of 5 and the lowest score was 1.42. From the analysis results the average highest score 4.7 out of 5 and the lowest score 1.42 was found for the quality evaluation of lane line. This result showed that the lane line quality level differed significantly between different points. Again, in almost all of the examined points although the lateral position distributions fit the normal distribution, it was determined that the distribution of both the right/left wheels and the centers of gravity were skewed to the right or left. However, in ideal conditions, the right-left wheel positions and the distribution of the center of gravity of the vehicles should not be skewed to the right or left. According to the obtained results, it is seen that the vehicles do not center the lanes exactly, but generally move close to the right or left edge of the lane. On the other hand, this result showed that the lane utilization discipline where the vehicles are located are quite weak in Turkey and it revealed the necessity of improvement.