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Speed reduction markings have been installed on highways as perceptual countermeasures for speeding. However, little is known about the effects of the shape and interval of road markings on driving speed and lane position. In this paper, a driving simulator experiment and questionnaires were performed to explore the effects of speed reduction marking patterns on driving speed and standard deviation of lane position (SDLP), as well as drivers’ subjective feelings, mental workload, and visual attention. Thirty-nine participants drove on a simulated two-lane rural highway where speed reduction markings with different shapes and intervals were presented at horizontal curves. The pavement markings were associated with reduced throttle values and mean speed in advance of a horizontal curve. The marking shape did not affect participants’ speed choice or SDLP. A cognitive alerting effect of the speed reduction markings was dominant because the participants did not drive more slowly with the markings with converging intervals toward the traveling direction compared to those with a constant interval. A questionnaire on drivers’ attention reflected a potential use of road markings for drivers’ lane-position maintenance. Since less than 18 % of the participants noticed the convergence in marking intervals, speed reduction markings may also induce the perceptual illusion of acceleration.

Though the loss of time is considered equivalent to opportunity loss, little research has been conducted in the field of signal control that accounts for individual differences in subjective opportunity loss. Because bids reflect the subjective valuation of opportunity loss, this paper introduces the concept of a bid-based priority signal control that accommodates indeterministic characteristics of queue formation in a connected environment and addresses several key elements of such a concept. Within this conception, drivers can bid for their desired signal indication. Based on these bids, an algorithm extends a green interval as long as the cumulative opportunity loss observed in stopped movements remains less than the value that would be lost through the termination of that green interval. The effects of this new type of control on user benefit and queueing delay were assessed using the asymmetric simple exclusion process. Simulation results showed that the bid-based priority signal control produced a greater subjective user benefit when measured in relation to a pre-timed control with a similar green interval. In addition, the bid-based priority signal kept the average maximum queue length relatively equal to its pre-timed equivalent. The bid-based priority signal control also balanced out the expected values of user benefit in conflicting movements. Bid-based signal priority control was recommended for further study to investigate the effects of bidding distributions on effectiveness and queue length in high-fidelity microsimulations.