Malaysian North South Expressway landscape character: analysis of users’ preference of highway landscape elements

Abstract

A highway that is scenic and has unique landscape characters makes a journey exciting for highway users. The research discovered that the North South Expressway (E1) users prefers natural landscape characteristic (n) to cultural landscape characteristic (c). The highway landscape elements that are selected as the most attractive to the least attractive are paddy fields (n), limestone hills (n), mountain ranges (n), hilly forests (n), open green fields (n), flat terrain forests (n), palm oil estates (c), villages (c), towns (c), residential areas (c) and industrial areas (c) as the least attractive. For the natural landscape elements group, highway users selected landform, unique character, scenic, psychological and trees as the five top factors why they rated the landscape elements as attractive. And for the cultural landscape elements which received low rating, highway users gave the factors of built environment, psychological, design and unique character as the main reason why they rated cultural low. The research established that the North South Expressway users prefer the natural landscape character more than the cultural and the factors of landform, uniqueness, scenic quality, psychological effect and trees are important in making the attractive.