An Empirical Study of the Effects of Road Tunnel on Driving Performance

This study focused on driving inside road tunnel and is aimed to establish how drivers behave inside tunnel as well as approaching it and exiting from it. The paper analyses the effects of tunnel on drivers performance using driving simulator. A tunnel scenario is reproduced in CRISS simulator and driving parameters are compared with the data of a control scenario, characterized by the same road alignment, but without tunnel. Results match several findings of epidemiological studies on real-world tunnel, providing strong support to the use of driving simulation for studying drivers' behaviour and its consequence on road safety. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of SIIV2012 Scientific Committee