Investigating the Influence of Highway Median Design on Driver Stress

This study investigates the effect of highway median design on driver stress. Two types of highway medians were considered: a raised-curb median and a painted median. 80 drivers, equally distributed between males and females across two age groups (18-30 and 31-45 years old), were invited to participate in the experiment. Physiological changes in heart rate were measured, monitored and recorded before and during the driving test, and the diver perception survey method was also used to evaluate subjects perceived stress level while driving on different median types. For the divided highways with raised-curb median, the results from biometric measures as well as self-perception evaluations suggest that increasing the width of the inner shoulder could help to reduce the driver stress load. However, we found no effect from the width of the painted median, though this is probably due to low volumes of oncoming traffic during the experiment.