Abstract
In tunnels, lighting not only affects visual performance, but also non-visual aspects such as drivers' physiological fatigue and mental stress. The non-visual impacts in the interior zone of long tunnels are particularly prominent as drivers are confined for a long time. To alleviate this problem, this study aims to investigate the relationship between drivers' physiological and psychological states and lighting environments. The physiological signal test system (MP150) breathing belt was used to record the changes of heart rate variability (HRV) of drivers when passing through the interior zone of a long tunnel under various lighting conditions. In particular, sympathetic indicators of physiological fatigues and the ratio of low frequency and high frequency (LF/HF) representing mental load were obtained. By analyzing the temporal variation in these two indicators, it is found that environmental luminance perception can more accurately reflect drivers' physiological and psychological states in the long tunnel than road luminance. An increase in road luminance or background luminance will result in a decrease in the mental stress, thereby reducing fatigue sense. Compared to simply increasing road luminance, mental stress of drivers decreased more obviously when the background luminance of long tunnel increased. Based on this, this paper proposed a method to regulate non-visual effect by adding contour markers without increasing light source intensity for the improvement in lighting performance, driving safety, and energy efficiency in long tunnels.
Highlights
In long tunnels, reasonable lighting design is one of the important tasks for engineers and designers to ensure driving safety
The average luminance within the visual area is defined as the perceived ambient luminance, which includes the road luminance and the luminance reflected from the sidewall of the tunnel into the human eye under the irradiation of the headlights
When the driving speed is 80 km/h, the background luminance norm perceived by the driver in the dynamic field of view is the cross-section in the range of 31◦ with the long tunnel as the center
Summary
Reasonable lighting design is one of the important tasks for engineers and designers to ensure driving safety. Traditional tunnel lighting studies have paid attention to the driver’s luminance adaptation, to address the luminance problem at the entrance and exit of the tunnel. For long tunnels, existing studies are far from enough to solve these problems. Existing technical reports and specifications have not presented technical indicators for long tunnels. There is a gap between light performance and driving comfort and safety in the interior zone in long tunnels. According to the Statistics of Road Tunnel Traffic Accidents in China from 2012 to 2016 [1], the number of casualties caused by tunnel accidents in 2016 increased by 25% compared with 2012. Most accidents are related to the rear-end collision of vehicles in tunnels
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
