Smart on-Road Technologies and Road Safety: A short overview

Smart on-Road Technologies (SRT) are installations on the road, with which drivers interact passively, designed to reduce road accidents by increasing driving performance and/or road network sustainability. Although SRT are a core element of the future Smart Road Infrastructures, as they might significantly improve the road system, they are usually presented just as conceptual models instead of actual solutions. Consequently, evidence on the effectiveness of SRT in increasing driving performance and/or safety are scarce and not conclusive. Here, we present an overview of SRT systems (theoretical or existing) to try to identify their goals and objectives in terms of impact on road safety and driving behavior. More than 100 peer-reviewed articles on SRT, published in the last five years, were screened. Based on their impact on the road transportation system, we classified SRT into two main categories: (i) those that encourage appropriate road users’ behaviors and awareness, including active and adaptive road delineator systems such as luminescent horizontal road markings, temperature-sensitive paints, or musical roads, and (ii) those able to reduce the environmental impact of the road transportation system, including technologies such as electrified priority lanes, and smart road lightning. Preliminary empirical evidence has shown the effectiveness of SRT in improving drivers’ performance (e.g., vehicle lane positioning) and perceived safety. This result is based on just eight works, however. Overall, our results pointed out that SRT lack dedicated research aimed at evaluating the effects on driving performance and safety (traffic crash/injury prevention). To discourage the misuse of any new SRT, future research investigating the impact of these advanced innovations, using both simulated and real settings, is needed.