Abstract
This paper intends to figure out the current and future context of road signing. Such perspective stems out of our participation in a number of international harmonization groups concerning Variable Message Signs (VMS) harmonization. We have been assisting the Spanish Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) in several harmonization groups in the last decade. DGT has been chairing VMS harmonization groups at the European Union level, such as Mare Nostrum VMS 2003-2006, ES4-Mare Nostrum 2007-2009, and ESG4-Mare Nostrum 2010-2012 now under the DGMOVE EasyWay programe. ESG4 involves nowadays 14 EU countries. DGT is also chairing harmonization groups at the United Nations levels (i.e., ad hoc groups such as the Small Group on VMS 2003-2008 and the VMS Unit 2009-2012).
VMS are strategic devices for a number of reasons. To begin with, VMS display public information concerning road safety and mobility. In Europe, posted road signs are designed and displayed following international principles and agreements guarded by UNECE Working Party on Road Traffic Safety (WP.1) in Geneva. We refer to the Convention on Road Signs and Signals done in Vienna in 1968. So VMS displays must adopt and follow certain parameters concerning road signs design according to the 1968 Convention, sharing the basic functional marks displayed by posted signs in order to ease and optimize comprehension. Last but not least, VMS can increasingly be displayed in full matrix devices, and this very fact approaches VMS design to in-vehicle displays. Simply said, relevant public information concerning safety and mobility should adopt common signing functional and content formats regardless of the place where we display such information.
Keywords: Road signs, new technologies, harmonization, signing culture, in-car