Influence of Time Pressure and Flood Information Type on Flood Alert Effectiveness in Driving

Flood alerts are a means of risk communication that alerts the public to potential floods. The purpose of this research was to investigate factors that affected drivers’ understanding and actions given a flood presented through a mobile navigation application. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of time pressure and type of flood information on drivers’ planned actions when faced with potential flooding. Participants were asked about their planned actions given one type of flood information in a driving scenario either with or without time pressure. Our results indicated significant differences in participants’ behaviors across the different flood information types, but not between the two time-pressure conditions. These results suggest that displaying the flood information is helpful in promoting drivers’ safe decisions to avoid the potentially flooded roadway, and that detailed information may help users better perceive the depth and risk of the potential flood.