Influence of Sidewall Color of Highway Long Tunnel on Driving Safety

Influenced by the closed and monotonous environment inside long highway tunnels, drivers are prone to be irritable and unconsciously accelerate to leave the tunnel, which exerts adverse influence on driving safety. To alleviate the psychological pressure of drivers, this paper, based on theory of color psychology, built numerous highway long tunnel models with different colored sidewalls, after which numerous driving simulation experiments were conducted to research the influence of sidewall color on driver’s heart rate and speed. The results showed the growth of heart rate would increase when drivers entered the long tunnel at about 1,500 m. Considering the color of the sidewall, the mean growth of heart rate was smallest in cyan, and the standard deviation of speed was smallest in blue. Considering color combinations, the mean growth of heart rate and the standard deviation of speed were smallest in the combination of blue and white.