Alternative Emergency Vehicle Lighting Affects Traffic Behaviors

Emergency vehicle lightings (EVL) mitigate the risk of collision and make drivers move over. The present paper explored how new alternative EVL designs can improve driver behavior in different emergency vehicle interaction scenarios. From workshops with 14 emergency responders, three scenarios (Emergency driving, Police pull-over, Emergency vehicle alongside the road) and 19 EVL blink patterns were chosen. These alternative EVLs were presented in an online survey with 2627 Swedish respondents. Alternative EVL affected reported driving behavior. Drivers reported being most certain of what is expected from them in the emergency-driving scenario. It is important to ensure that the EVL is easy to interpret in more unfamiliar emergency-vehicle interactions such as police pull-over. Only a third of drivers had seen the pull-over EVL currently used in Sweden. The current pull-over EVL in combination with a stop sign increased the chance of drivers reporting that they would pull over.