Road Signs: Geosemiotics and Human Mobility

Salmiah, Abdul Hamid (2016) Road Signs: Geosemiotics and Human Mobility. Aalborg University Press, Aalborg University. ISBN 2246-1248

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Abstract

When you are driving a car, do you refer to road signs as your guide? Or perhaps when you are walking in an unfamiliar urban environment, how do you navigate yourself from one place to another in that environment? How do you make sense of signs in your everyday life? These questions relate to the theoretical and empirical evidence of road signs as traffic guides as well as to how a person moves around in an environment. Different types of road signs exist in this world. Most road signs are uniform signs that are standard for worldwide application, based on the Vienna Convention (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 1968). Many research studies in the urban environment and traffic engineering fields focus on human behaviour and traffic sign system recognition. In order to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art developments, this thesis presents a theoretical lens that is used to anchor the subjects of the studies of ‘urban environment’, ‘human behaviour’ and ‘road signs’ through the theories of geosemiotics and mobility. The fields of geosemiotics and mobility are important aspects of this research; they provide another theoretical challenge in the form of merging these two disciplines in the analysis in order to enhance a dialogue between the fields of urban design and visual communication. Thus, the interrelation between the two theories will help to answer the question of whether road signs have significant impact on human behaviour when moving in an urban environment. Selected cities in Denmark and Scotland were used as study areas in this research project. In order to understand the importance of visual understanding among people, field observations and focus group interviews were conducted during the research process. The methods were conducted within urban settings as well as controlled settings that emphasised the interaction between the participants and the visual representations of road signs. The key contribution of the findings in this research project is the methodological triangulations of qualitative data used in the field observations as well as focus group interviews which were inspired by geosemiotics and mobility practices. This thesis aims to be used as a guideline for the urban planning of a Malaysian road traffic sign system in the future.

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