Self-explaining roads: Improving road safety for more vulnerable road users

Spanish road policy DGT focuses on vision 0, defined as the achievement of a system that reduces the possibility of accidents and, in any case, injuries. One aspect that has greater influence is the readability of the road by drivers and, especially, the horizontal signaling. Based on the vision of the Sustainable Road Safety developed in the Netherlands in the 90s, the main objective is to develop the so-called self-explaining roads, which show a road signaling clearly indicating to users in what type of road are and what behavior to adopt to maintain road safety for all road users. In order to develop a self-explaining horizontal signaling, it has been made a benchmarking research on some of the different types of most notable horizontal signage used worldwide and its main characteristics. The Spanish DGT is developing major developments in this field in Spain and continues to research in this line of work.