Intertwining road user behaviour and traffic psychology with ITS in South Africa

Abstract

Road safety is a core problem that the South African government battle with year-on year. One of the areas where South Africa has sadly been lacking behind is within the field of road and traffic psychology. This is despite the fact that presumably 90% of road and traffic crashes are considered to be due to human error. Approaches to address road user behaviour on South African roads are seemingly not tailored enough to address the problem on our roads. One of the reasons for this might be the serious lack of reliable scientifically sound data. Without adequate transport and traffic related data it becomes difficult to develop countermeasures or to influence policy and the effective formulation of strategies to curb the road safety problem in South Africa. The CSIR NyendaWeb aims to address this problem through the creation of an open platform, where data from a sensor web can be received, analysed and made accessible to researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. Interventions and strategies to reduce crashes in South Africa mainly revolve around engineering and enforcement with little or no real insight into the behaviour that these strategies aim to address. The field of Intelligent Transportation Systems is still fairly unexplored within either the ergonomics or traffic psychology domain in South Africa. The CSIR NyendaWeb platform for the first time provides an opportunity to collect road user behaviour data through the sensor web, which will make it possible to collate, analyse and interpret road user behaviour on a higher level. Most approaches in accident reduction revolve around (mostly unavailable) crash data and specific locations. By utilising the sensor web to collect different types of information from everyday road usage situations it becomes possible to better understand road user behaviour within the South African context. In order to interpret and understand what the specific road user behaviour is and how it fits within the South Africa context, one should first be able to classify that information. Currently no such a behavioural guideline or index for road users exists in South Africa. Only after road user behaviour has been classified and indexed can methods be developed to fully measure road user behaviour. This tool could be used to pinpoint specific and hazardous locations, as is currently being done, but will also give insight into general and “not at risk” road user behaviour.