فصلنامه مطالعات مدیریت ترافیک
پیاپی 11 (زمستان 1388)

Information signs are the main devices which inform drivers to navigate their vehicles on the roads. This process, of course, should be done through the shortest possible time. The size and font of the signs’ text should be suitable regarding the location of signs and speed of vehicles passing through. Much research has been carried out on Latin fonts but there is no available legible model for Persian fonts. One of the main problems in the evaluation of signs’ font is appropriateness regarding the speed of vehicles passing through these boards and the legibility process, including visibility, reading sign information and confirmation on driver’s mind as a matter of quality. This research presents a model to reform the process of transferring reading Persian signs’ quality to quantity which could be measured by diagrams. The main phase of the process is about visual sense functioning, whereas cameras are made on the basis of visual sense, and have been used instead of human eyes. A model is abstracted by capturing images of a sign from different distances (every 10 meters) to measure the sign’s criteria. This model is a linear equation including the relationship between the sign’s visibility distance and the height of the first Persian alphabet, that is, " ا " (called alef). In this research, all the stages of reading a sign by drivers and the needed time for each stage are illustrated on the diagrams.

Transportation is considered to be the main contributing factor in alleviating the economic growth and plays an important role in the movement of goods and passengers. Transportation is also one of the main basic factors showing economic growth and social progress and connects countries and makes people of those countries familiar with the outside world. A review of literature on the topic clearly states that around 40% of International Bank loans till 1996 were dedicated to transportation, which clearly shows the importance of the issue. With respect to geographical and continental conditions, economic capacities and infrastructures, different countries use various modes of transportation, including road, sea, rail or air to carry the goods. Transportation of goods by road is accounted around 75% in Iran. Due to excess loading and the high accidents rate in the Khorasan Razavi province, which hosts more than 25 million pilgrims annually, the present research has been carried out on the cause of accidents due to excess loading. The literature review of the current study includes procedures and guidelines, and regulations for carriage of goods and passengers. In this paper, the research data was gathered using questionnaires designed for data collection from Khorasan Razavi province. This study discusses the excess loading role in accidents rate and its effects. Based on the findings of the current study, excess loading has proved to have a direct influence on accidents occurred in Khorasan Razavi province.

Today, rapid growth in population, urbanization expansion, change of lifestyle, undeveloped urban culture, increase in the number of vehicles, lack of knowledge on the nature of traffic rules and regulations, lack of standard roads and passages and lack of know-how about urban planning have resulted in heavy traffic, considerable number of accidents, financial losses and physical injuries. Hence, there is an urgent need for training traffic–related issues, e.g. correct method of driving, signification of traffic signs, use of public transportation vehicles and their advantages, regulations on bicycle and motorcycle use etc. for students through integrating these materials with their curriculum. This study discusses these issues and presents a number of applicable suggestions.

Issues related to driving are controversial emotional ones, because they are unpredictable issues that happen frequently and include dangerous cases. Drivers are quite different with regard to this matter. Most drivers take these cases as emotional stress, so coping with that is perceived to be difficult. On the other hand, drivers often have competitive motives and are not aware of their own emotional annoyance. This matter affects their motives and aims and causes the distortion of the driver’s thoughts and an increase in his or her uncontrollable emotions. The drivers involved in such emotions will commit dangerous and stressful behaviors which will encourage them towards individualism and self-admiration. Paying attention to the concept of emotional intelligence as a psychological structure, which, with its own interpersonal and intrapersonal components, will affect and change every relationship between the person and his or her surrounding environment, is of great importance.This paper regards the importance of emotional intelligence in driving and aims to introduce new methods for the improvement of driving patterns.

One of the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) tools for improving the service level of urban highways is ramp control systems, which limits the rate in which vehicles enter from on-ramps into the highways in certain peak hours. This system is proved to be effective on some traffic efficiency parameters, including pollution, average speed, throughput and safety. In this article, an on-ramp from Sadr highway into Modarres highway is studied to be a candidate place for the ramp control system. With the help of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), used along with experts opinions about evaluation parameters and their weights, a simulation of the site with Aimsun software has been done and 3 scenarios have been compared to each other. It is shown that using the ramp control system is effective in Sadr-Modarres on-ramp and it has an 8% improvement in traffic flow and 18.7% improvement in delays (best scenario). After all, a cost assessment of the scenarios reveals that even though actuated control of ramping (scenario #3) is best with respect to the technical results, its total value (improvement/cost) is less than fixed time scenario. Thus, for the current situation of the site and given costs, using a fixed-time ramp control system is recommended.

Traffic as a new phenomenon has an important role in city management and the approaches of sociology and communication sciences have made it clear that establishing an order in traffic is not necessarily related to employing technical principles only, but it is necessary to encourage people to obey traffic rules and regulations through using cultural and behavioral elements and taking into consideration people’s attitudes and their cooperation with traffic police in deepening their mutual interaction. This important issue is the main element of social capital for traffic police. What matters in this respect is that social capital applies to a system of cooperation, wisdom, trust and a network of norms which makes police and people come to cooperation. Generally, social capital leads to knowing social expectations and increases the cooperation and a better interaction between the police and people. In the present study, the frameworks of relationships and social capital proposed by Robert Pathname, James Colman, Gedense, Fokoyama & Krishna have been employed to evaluate and analyze the rate of social capital of traffic police and also to present a suitable model. The results of the survey and the data obtained from two statistical groups of drivers and traffic police officers show that people ask for a humanitarian interaction with traffic police officers and believe this issue to be very effective on traffic regulations obedience.

The present paper tries to explore and compare personality characteristics of offender and non-offender drivers. To do so, a sample of 200 drivers was randomly selected. Then, MMPI personality test was used. The results of the research show that offender drivers are different from non-offender drivers in personality signs, so that they show higher rates of hypochondria, depression, psycho-social deviation, paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia and mania. The rates have proved significant, compared to non-offender drivers. However, hysteria differences were not significant between the two groups. In general, the results of the study were shown to be consistent with the previous ones.

With regard to the spread of and the growing trend in ecstasy usage and its dangerous after-use consequences, especially in driving, and with respect to the inadequacy of past researches, and also contradictory and diverse opinions about its bad effects, the present paper tries to discuss the effects of ecstasy on risky driving behaviors. The research is, of course, reviewing and descriptive in nature.Since ecstasy usage has attracted many researchers’ attention in the past, journals and relevant web sites were searched and ultimately 25 qualified sources were selected. Then, while analyzing these studies, the effects of ecstasy usage, especially on risky driving behaviors, were studied. The results show that ecstasy usage can bring about many problems, including stimulation of central nervous system, sleepiness, hallucination, convulsion, and increase in heartbeat and blood pressure, and may cause loss of consciousness, hallucination, false self-confidence and risky behaviors while driving.