Exploring travelers’ behavior in response to dynamic message signs (DMS) using a driving simulator.

Jeihani, Mansoureh; Ardeshiri, Anam · 2013 · ROSA P / Maryland. State Highway Administration. Office of Policy & Research

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Summary

This study investigates the effectiveness of Dynamic Message Signs (DMS) in influencing driver behavior, specifically regarding route choice, speed adjustments, and travel time perception. Motivated by the Maryland State Highway Administration’s goal to optimize traffic management strategies, the research addresses the gap between stated preferences and actual driving behavior under high cognitive load. The study aims to determine if DMS messages effectively guide drivers toward less congested routes without causing significant safety risks, such as excessive speed reduction while reading signs. The methodology combined a high-fidelity driving simulator experiment with stated preference (SP) surveys. Over 100 participants from diverse socio-economic and age groups drove a simulated 12 × 12 mi² network southwest of Baltimore, choosing between three route alternatives (I-95, MD 295, and Washington Blvd.) to reach a fixed destination. The UC-win/Road simulator replicated realistic conditions, including traffic signals, roadside objects, and two DMS locations. DMS1 provided quantitative travel time information for I-95 and MD 295, while DMS2 provided qualitative incident information (e.g., accidents, lane closures) on I-95. Five scenarios were designed to test different traffic regimes and message contents. Participants completed three sequential questionnaires to assess their attitudes, route familiarity, and simulation sickness, allowing for a comparison between their stated intentions and revealed simulator behavior. The findings indicate that DMS is a safe device, as drivers did not significantly reduce their speed to read the displayed content. Quantitative information from DMS1 significantly influenced route choices, with drivers demonstrating high sensitivity to travel time differences. However, a notable discrepancy emerged between stated and revealed preferences: the actual diversion rate in response to qualitative information from DMS2 was substantially lower than what participants reported in the surveys. Drivers were less likely to divert from I-95 to MD 295 in the simulator than they claimed they would in the questionnaire, suggesting that real-time driving conditions and cognitive loads suppress the willingness to change routes compared to hypothetical scenarios. The significance of this research lies in its validation of DMS as an effective and safe traffic management tool, particularly for conveying quantitative travel time data. The study challenges the assumption that stated preference surveys accurately predict real-world driver compliance, highlighting the limitations of traditional questionnaire-based models. By demonstrating that drivers are more responsive to precise time savings than to qualitative incident warnings in a dynamic environment, the findings provide Maryland transportation authorities with evidence to refine DMS message formats and improve traffic assignment models that account for human factors and cognitive load.

Key finding

Drivers significantly altered route choices based on quantitative travel time information but exhibited much lower actual diversion rates for qualitative incident messages compared to their stated survey preferences.

Methodology

simulator

Sample size: 100

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• speed choice
• traffic density
• external distraction

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data, observational prevalence
• Methodological Resource: tool software