Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626

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Applied Ergonomics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apergo

Effects of advertising billboards during simulated driving

Jessica Edquist*, Tim Horberry 1, Simon Hosking 2, Ian Johnston
Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Building 70, Victoria 3800, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: There is currently a great deal of interest in the problem of driver distraction. Most research focuses on
Received 30 October 2009 distractions from inside the vehicle, but drivers can also be distracted by objects outside the vehicle.
Accepted 19 August 2010 Major roads are increasingly becoming sites for advertising billboards, and there is little research on the
potential effects of this advertising on driving performance. The driving simulator experiment presented
Keywords: here examines the effects of billboards on drivers, including older and inexperienced drivers who may be
Distraction
more vulnerable to distractions. The presence of billboards changed drivers patterns of visual attention,
Roadside advertising
increased the amount of time needed for drivers to respond to road signs, and increased the number of
Driving simulation
Lane change test
errors in this driving task.
Response time 2010 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.
Eye movements

1. Introduction billboards might impair driving performance, controlled laboratory

1.1. Background
Advertising billboards are highly conspicuous due to their size,
colouration, and location usually near major roads. The outdoor
advertising industry promotes billboards as attention-grabbing, for
example Out-of-home advertising provides visual impact that
commands complete attention, and offers total cut-through
(Eyecorp, 2004). It might therefore be expected that they would
distract attention from the driving task.
Roadside advertising has received attention with other potential
driver distractions, as evidenced by the symposium at the recent
International Conference on Driver Distraction. There is not space
in the present paper to cover the entirety of the relevant literature
and international policies around roadside advertising, but it is
summarised by Horberry et al. (2009) at that conference.
Reviews of crash rates associated with billboards seem to show
that billboards are correlated with higher crash rates, particularly in
certain situations such as at intersections, when driver workload is
very high or very low (Cairney and Gunatillake, 2000; Farbry et al.,
2001; Wallace, 2003). However correlation does not necessarily
imply causation. To ascertain how (and in what circumstances)
experiments are necessary.
A small number of these sorts of experiments have been per-
formed: Johnston and Cole (1976) found that centrally presented
non-driving-related signs did not affect a tracking task, but did
affect peripheral detection. Luoma (1986) found that participants
were less likely to correctly recall road signs in slides of road scenes
that contained billboards. Clark and Davies (2008) used a PC-based
simulated driving task and found that non-driving-related signs
delayed responses to simultaneously presented road signs.
Several studies of eye movements while driving (Beijer et al.,
2004; Crundall et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2007; Smiley et al., 2004)
provide evidence that billboards may capture drivers visual
attention and hold it for relatively long periods. Long glances away
from the road increase crash risk, as demonstrated in the 100-car
naturalistic driving study (Klauer et al., 2006).
Wickens (2008) suggests that task interference will occur when
two stimuli or tasks share the same input modality, processing
requirements, and response type. Roadside advertising attracts
visual attention and cognitive central processing (as the observer
determines whether the advertisement is relevant to their current
goals), so billboards would be expected to cause task interference
with driving tasks that require visual xation and central
processing.

* Correspondence author. Tel.: 61 3 9905 5815; fax: 61 3 9905 4363. 1.2. The present experiment
E-mail address: Jessica.Edquist@muarc.monash.edu.au (J. Edquist).
1
Tim Horberry is now at Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, University
of Queensland, Australia.
It therefore seems likely that billboards can distract drivers such
2
Simon Hosking is now at Defence Science and Technology Organisation, that their response to road signs and potentially other road users is
Australia. delayed or absent. The present experiment examined a range of

0003-6870/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2010.08.013
620 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626
performance measures using a high-delity driving simulator, as
this method provides a balance between the control of a laboratory
study and the realism of an on road study.
One driving task previously used to investigate distraction is the
ISO standardised Lane Change Test (Burns et al., 2005). This
involves changing lanes in response to road signs at regular inter-
vals. Burns et al. (2005) found that when drivers were distracted by
a visual-manual task, they performed worse at the Lane Change
Test. The task of responding to road signs requires visual xation
and cognitive processing, which as discussed above, are vulnerable
to interference from roadside advertising. It is therefore expected
that distraction due to billboards would impair drivers ability to
correctly follow road signs and change lanes quickly. The task used
in the present experiment was not the standard Lane Change Test,
as rather than speed being set at a predetermined limit, it was
desirable for drivers to be able to choose their own speed in
response to the road environment.
The present experiment also examined visual behaviour. While
the research of Beijer et al., as well as Lee et al. (2007), demon-
strates that drivers xate on billboards, it is not possible for on road
studies to analyse how billboards change gaze patterns as the
environment cannot be sufciently controlled to attribute differ-
ences to billboards alone. This problem does not exist in a simu-
lated environment. The proportion of time xating on the road
ahead is expected to be high, as the present experiment involved no
hazards approaching from the sides (so there was no reason for
drivers to xate away from the road ahead). It was hypothesised
that billboard presence would draw xations away from the road
ahead, towards roadsides where billboards were situated.
In addition to static billboards, the present experiment included
billboards that changed what they were displaying. These billboards
are becoming more common and there is little experimental research
about their effects. The visual attention literature suggests that the
motion onset cue provided by the changing display will involuntarily
attract attention (Abrams and Christ, 2003). Therefore it was expec-
ted that these changeable billboards should attract eye movements
and affect responses to road signs more than static billboards.
We also wished to investigate whether the effect of billboards
changed in the presence of trafc, so one of the drives included lead
vehicles. Lead vehicles may increase the effect of the billboards due
to the increased workload of maintaining an acceptable headway
distance. Strayer et al. (2003) found that adding vehicles increased
perceptual load and the effect of a secondary task. However it is
also possible that lead vehicles may attenuate the effect of bill-
boards, as drivers will concentrate on the vehicle ahead in order to
maintain the specied headway. Lead vehicles have been found to
increase the proportion of time xating on the (vehicles and) road
ahead (Crundall et al., 2004), and this effect is expected in the
present experiment.
It was anticipated that age and inexperience might affect the
extent of any billboard effects, so young novice drivers and older
drivers were compared with drivers who were neither old, young
nor inexperienced (comparison drivers). Novice drivers were
expected to be particularly distracted by billboards, as their mental
model of how to nd relevant information is less well developed;
novices have been found to xate more signs than experienced
drivers, and more irrelevant signs the rst time they drive a route
(Sprenger et al., 1997). Older drivers have been found to report fewer
roadside signs (Wood, 2002); if this reects differences in percep-
tion rather than reporting, they are more likely to respond to road
signs later or not at all. Older drivers have been found to make fewer
xations than younger drivers overall, but make more xations to
peripheral areas, perhaps because they are unable to monitor
peripheral events with covert attention (Mapstone, 2001). This may
leave them more vulnerable to distraction from billboards.
1.3. Study overview and summary of hypotheses
The aim of the study was to examine visual behaviour and
responses to road signs in the presence and absence of billboards. It
was expected that billboards would impair responses to road signs,
with changeable billboards having more impact than static billboards.
Billboards were expected to change visual behaviour by drawing
attention towards roadsides, at the expense of the road ahead. Novice
drivers and older drivers were expected to be more affected by the
billboards than the comparison group. Lead vehicles were expected to
increase the proportion of time xating on the road ahead; this could
interact with the effect of billboards on lane changes.
As the billboards used in this study were very simple (the logo
and tagline of a company only) they are potentially less conspicuous
and less likely to retain attention than billboards used in the real
world (which tend to contain a picture and more text). To ensure
that we could determine the effects of looking at billboards even if
the simple simulated billboards were not sufciently attention-
grabbing, half of the participants in each age/experience group were
instructed to report any billboards they saw. These participants were
expected to show greater effects of billboard presence.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Participants
48 participants (30 males and 18 females) from three age/
experience groups took part. The novice driver group consisted of
sixteen drivers aged 18e25 who had gained their licence to drive
unsupervised less than one year ago. The sample was restricted to
rst-year drivers as the rst year of unsupervised driving has been
reported to be the most dangerous (Mayhew et al., 2003). The older
driver group comprised sixteen drivers aged over 65 years who
held full drivers licences. The comparison driver group consisted of
sixteen drivers aged 25e55 who held full licences. Table 1 shows
further details of participant characteristics. Participants were
recruited by notices in the universitys staff bulletin, on the student
job website, and at nearby Senior Citizens clubs and Universities of
the Third Age. All received a small cash payment as compensation
for their time and travel costs.
2.2. Apparatus and stimuli
The experiment was performed in Monash University Accident
Research Centres driving simulator (see Fig. 1). This consists of
a 2003 Holden Calais sedan mounted on a motion platform, with
three projection screens at the front. From the drivers viewpoint
the three screens in front of the car provide a eld of view sub-
tending angles of approximately 180 horizontally and 40 verti-
cally. The display has a resolution of 1280  768 pixels for the front
panel and 640  480 pixels for the side panels. The projectors
update the image at a rate of 30 Hz. A Crystal River Audio Reality
Accoustetron II audio system generates appropriate sounds. Data is
collected from the brake pedal, accelerator pedal and steering
wheel at a rate of 30 Hz. Participants head and eye movements
were tracked using faceLab head and eye tracking hardware and
Table 1
Participant characteristics for driving simulator experiment.
Group Proportion Mean age Mean driving (Self-estimated)
of males experience Mean distance driven
Novice 7/16 19.4 years .6 years 10,400 km/year
Comparison 11/16 35.1 years 15.4 years 14,700 km/year
Older 12/16 73.6 years 53.0 years 15,400 km/year
 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626
Fig. 1. The Advanced Driving Simulator at MUARC.
software. This system has a resolution of three degrees of visual
angle. Data collection from faceLab and the vehicle was linked to
the display updates.
The simulated scenarios consisted of three-lane divided arterial
roads through commercial and industrial environments, with
occasional intersections controlled by signal lights. This environ-
ment was chosen because, of the simulated environments available,
it was closest to the type of road where advertising billboards are
most often located, and these higher speed, higher demand envi-
ronments are where billboards are likely to have the greatest
effects. In one drive there was no trafc travelling in the same
direction as the participant; the other drive involved three lead
vehicles, one in each lane, driving at 70 km/h (this speed limit was
consistent with the simulated road environment). Each drive was
approximately 9 km long. Participants occasionally had to stop at
intersections, but the main task was to change lanes in response to
roadside lane change signs at regular intervals. This task was
broadly based on the ISO standard Lane Change Test as described by
Burns et al. (2005), but drivers controlled their own speed; there-
fore it was not possible to calculate deviations from the optimal
lane change path as used in the standard Lane Change Test. Instead,
the dependent variables were errors (number of times drivers
missed a sign or entered the wrong lane) and time to change lanes;
worse performance would involve more errors and longer lane
changes. The lane change signs measured 2  1 m and were spaced
approximately every 150 m; they did not become visible until the
participant was 140 m from them. Each sign contained two crosses
and one arrow indicating the lane into which the participant should
change. Fig. 2 shows an example of a lane change sign.
Signs became visible when the driver was 140 m away so that
there were never two signs visible at the same time. Time to change
lanes was measured from about 50 m after the appearance of the
lane change sign (when the sign was 90 m away), so that the driver
could nish responding to the previous sign (These distances were
chosen as piloting showed that most drivers did not start their lane
change until they were 90 m from the sign, and completed the lane
change shortly after they passed the sign). Signs were spaced
approximately every 150 m so that the driver was almost contin-
ually switching lanes. If the driver did not enter the correct lane
within the distance 90 m before passing the sign to 50 m after it, no
time data was recorded; these occurrences were analysed as errors.
Each experimental drive contained a total of 37 lane change
signs. At two signs instructing the participant to change from the
centre lane into the left lane, and at two signs instructing the
participant to change from the centre to the right lane, a static
621
Fig. 2. Example of the simulated environment showing billboard and lane change sign.
billboard was present on the opposite side of the road. Similarly,
four signs had changeable billboards opposite to them, while four
were control sites with no billboards. The remaining 25 signs were
not analysed; they were used to direct the driver back into the
centre lane, or from the left to the right lane (so that the driver
could not predict which lane they would be directed into next).
Billboards used were logos of companies with a large Australian
advertising presence (see Fig. 2 for an example). These were chosen
so that they would be clearly recognisable in the simulator to most
participants (More complex real-world billboards were piloted,
however they were difcult to read due to resolution in the
simulator). Billboards measured 8  5 m (substantially larger than
the lane change signs; this is a common size format for billboards
next to roads) and popped up when the participant was 140 m
away from the billboard location. Static billboards displayed the
same logo for the whole 140 m; changeable billboards switched
from one logo to another when the participant was 85 m away from
the billboard. The simulator was only capable of performing one
change to the changeable billboards, so the change was timed to
maximise the chance of capturing attention (it occurred approxi-
mately 3 s after the billboard rst appeared, when drivers might be
expected to have returned their attention to the road; the second
logo appeared larger and clearer as the driver was closer, and was
visible for a further 5 s).
2.3. Procedure
At the start of the experimental session, participants completed
the demographic questionnaire. Participants then drove a short
sequence with the experimenter seated in the passenger seat, to
familiarise themselves with the controls of the vehicle. The
experimenter then returned to the control room, from where there
is two-way communication with the participant in the simulator
vehicle. The next drive was performed solo, and allowed the
participant to practice the car following and lane change tasks.
Finally, the two experimental drives were performed. The order of
drives was counterbalanced within age/experience and instruction
groups. In the no trafc drive, participants were instructed to stay
as close as possible to the speed limit of 70 km/h; in the drive with
lead vehicles, they were instructed to maintain a following
distance of approximately 2 s behind the lead vehicles. In both
drives, participants were instructed to change lanes as soon as they
could perceive the arrow on the next lane change sign. Half of the
participants in each age/experience group were given only these
normal instructions. The other half were also asked to report what
622 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626

Table 2 Table 4
Between-subjects variables for the simulator experiment, and number of partici- Analysis of variance for time to change lanes (*indicates signicant at a .05).
pants per cell.
Source df F p h2
Probationary Comparison Older Between-subjects
Normal instructions 8 8 8 Instructions 1 .06 .802 .00
*
Report billboards 8 8 8 Age/experience 2 6.17 .004 .23
Instructions  age/exp 2 .20 .817 .01
Error (F MS error) 42 (1.89)
was advertised by any billboards they passed. This instruction was Within-subjects
*
to simulate the effect of being distracted by a particularly Vehicles 1 11.41 .002 .21
conspicuous billboard. After each drive, participants completed the Vehicles  instruct 1 .32 .574 .01
Vehicles  age/exp 2 .18 .838 .01
NASA-RTLX mental workload scale (Hart and Staveland, 1988). To
Vehicles  instruct  age/exp 2 .67 .515 .03
save time, weightings were not elicited, as an unweighted sum has Error(vehicles) (F MS error) 42 (.51)
been found to give an adequate indication of overall workload *
Billboard 2 35.03 .000 .46
*
(Hendy et al., 1993). The full session lasted for approximately 1 h. Billboard  instruct 2 6.87 .002 .14
*
Billboard  age/exp 4 2.85 .029 .12
Billboard  instruct  age/exp 4 2.12 .086 .09
2.4. Design and data analysis Error(billboard) (F MS error) 84 (.32)
*
Vehicles  billboard 2 4.51 .014 .10
The between-subjects factors were age/experience, and Vehicles  billboard  instruct 2 .57 .568 .01
instructions. Table 2 gives the number of participants in each cell. Vehicles  billboard  age/exp 4 .40 .806 .02
Vehicles  billboard  instruct  age/exp 4 1.31 .275 .06
The within-subjects factors were presence/absence of lead Error(vehicles  billboard) (F MS error) 84 (.29)
vehicles and billboard type (Table 3).
The dependent variables examined were time to change lanes,
number of lane change errors and proportion of time xating on the
road ahead, as these together demonstrate the major effects of As workload was anticipated to be a mediating factor for any
roadside advertising on driving performance. Further eye movement effect of the lead vehicles, mean subjective workload ratings for the
and vehicle control measures were examined but are not reported two drives were compared. Participants rated the drive without
here due to lack of space; for the full results see (Edquist, 2008). lead vehicles 44 (out of 100) and the drive with lead vehicles 41.
Time to change lanes and proportion of time xating on the road This difference was signicant, F(1,42) 6.029, p .018; however it
ahead were analysed using separate mixed-model ANOVAs with was not in the anticipated direction. There were no signicant
the within-subject factors being presence/type of billboard and interactions with age/experience or with instructions. However
presence of lead vehicles, and the between subject factors being both these main effects were signicant at p < .01. Novice drivers
type of instructions and age/experience group. Where the full reported higher workloads (mean rating 51) than comparison
ANOVA showed a signicant 3-way interaction, further analyses drivers (mean 34, p .004), while older drivers reported work-
were undertaken; this resulted in a total of 36 comparisons for the loads were not signicantly higher (mean 42, p .2). Drivers who
Time to Change Lanes results and 27 comparisons for the Fixation were asked to report billboards reported higher workload
results. P-values reported are uncorrected; F and df are reported for (mean 48) than drivers given normal instructions (mean 37,
each comparison so that readers can apply their own preferred p .007). As participants rated workload for each entire drive, it
adjustment if desired. was not possible to examine the effects of billboards.
Incorrect lane changes were analysed using Pearsons chi-
square test (as this data is binary, not continuous). Cases when the
3.2. Time to change lanes when directed by a roadside sign
driver changed into the wrong lane, as well as cases where
participants failed to change lanes within the segment of road 90 m
Incorrect or missed lane changes were not included in this
before passing the lane change sign to 50 m after it, were recorded
analysis, however the remaining dataset included 1090 correct lane
as lane change errors.
changes. The overall mean time to change lanes was 6.9 s, which
equates to 125 m at drivers average speed of 66 km/h. As lane
3. Results
change signs were on average 150 m apart, drivers did not have
a lot of leeway to delay lane changes.
3.1. Methodological checks

In both drives, participants reported 89% of billboards correctly,

suggesting that participants obeyed the instructions. All age groups
successfully performed this task: novice drivers reports were 95%
correct, comparison drivers 91% correct, and older drivers 82% correct.

Table 3
Within-subjects variables for the lane change task part of the simulator
experiment.

No trafc Lead vehicles

Lane change Centre lane Centre lane Centre lane Centre lane
sign instructions: / left lane / right lane / left lane / right lane
No billboard 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs
Static billboard 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs
Changeable 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs 2 signs
billboard Fig. 3. Mean and 95% condence intervals for time to change lanes, by vehicle pres-
ence and billboard type.
 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626 623

Table 5 Table 6
Post-hoc comparisons for interaction effect between vehicles and billboards on time Post-hoc comparisons for interaction effect of age and billboards on time to change
to change lanes. lanes.

Comparison df F p h2 Comparison df F p h2
Lead vehicles e effect of billboards 2, 84 22.38 <.001 .35 Novice drivers e effect of billboards 2, 28 6.21 <.01 .31
- static vs. control 1, 42 33.09 <.001 .44 - static vs. control 1, 14 12.43 <.01 .47
- changeable vs. static 1, 42 5.261 <.05 .11 - changeable vs. static 1, 14 3.323 >.05 .19
No vehicles e effect of billboards 2, 84 18.54 <.001 .31 Comparison drivers e effect of billboards 2, 28 34.22 <.001 .71
- static vs. control 1, 42 22.05 <.001 .34 - static vs. control 1, 14 45.25 <.001 .76
- changeable vs. static 1, 42 3.816 >.05 .08 - changeable vs. static 1, 14 .002 >.1 .00
Older drivers e effect of billboards 2, 28 8.29 .001 .37
- static vs. control 1, 14 7.77 <.05 .36
- changeable vs. static 1, 14 .854 >.1 .06
A mixed-model ANOVA including the within-subject factors of
billboard type and presence of lead vehicles, and the between-
subjects factors of instructions and age/experience, found several
signicant effects and interactions. Table 4 summarises the results 3.3. Errors when changing lanes (including changes to the wrong
of the ANOVA (effects signicant at a .5 are highlighted). lane, and failure to change lanes)
There was a signicant effect of billboard type on time to change
lanes. This effect was consistent despite two-way interactions Errors were consistent with the results for time to change lanes.
between billboard type and the other variables: in all cases, lane Out of 1152 lane changes, there were 62 errors, of which 50
changes when passing sites with billboards took longer than lane occurred in the presence of billboards (24 at static and 26 at
changes when passing control sites. The effect was similar for both changeable billboards; these categories were collapsed to enable
static and changeable billboards. calculation of odds ratios). Overall, drivers were signicantly more
Lane changes were on average faster in the presence of lead likely to make errors at sites with billboards: c2(1, N 1152) 5.76,
vehicles, however there was a signicant interaction between p < .05, odds ratio 2.16. This effect was stronger during the drive
vehicle presence and billboard type. As can be seen in Fig. 3, the with lead vehicles (OR 5.50 with vehicles, 1.11 without). Older
interaction between lead vehicles and billboard was due to the drivers (who made 63% of the errors across all conditions) showed
longest lane changes being at static billboard sites in the drive with a stronger effect than the comparison group (OR older 2.47,
lead vehicles and at changeable billboard sites in the drive without comparison 1.39). Novice drivers also showed a strong effect of
lead vehicles (F, p and h2 values for post-hoc comparisons are billboards (OR 3.57), however low error numbers for this group
reported in Table 5). meant that the effect was not signicant. Finally, the effect of bill-
Older drivers were slowest to change lanes overall, followed by boards was stronger for the group instructed to report billboards
novice drivers. There was a signicant interaction between bill- (OR 11.61; OR normal instructions 1.29) (Higher interactions
board type and age/experience group, as can be seen in Fig. 4. were not analysed as individual cell sizes would be insufcient).
Further analyses revealed that lane changes were signicantly
faster at control sites than sites with static billboards, and sites with 3.4. Proportion of time xating on road ahead (including lead
changeable billboards did not differ signicantly from sites with vehicles)
static billboards. The interaction is presumably due to the slightly
smaller effect of the changeable billboards in the novice driver Overall, drivers spent 55.9% of time on the approach to a lane
group (See Table 6 for F, p and h2 values for these analyses). change sign xating the road ahead. A mixed-model ANOVA
Billboard type also interacted signicantly with instructions (see including the within-subject factors of billboard type and presence
Fig. 5). The effect of billboards was larger for the group instructed to of lead vehicles, and the between-subjects factors of instructions
report billboards, although it was still highly signicant for the and age/experience, found a main effect of billboard type, and an
group given normal instructions. Again, changeable and static interaction between billboard type, instructions and age/experi-
billboards had similar effects (For F, p and h2 values for comparisons ence group. Table 8 summarises the results of the ANOVA (effects
see Table 7). signicant at a .5 are highlighted).
The effect of billboards was to reduce time xating the road ahead
for almost all subgroups of participants. To examine the signicant

Fig. 4. Mean and 95% condence intervals for time to change lanes, by age and bill- Fig. 5. Mean and 95% condence interval for time to change lanes, by instructions and
board type. billboard type.
624 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626

Table 7
Post-hoc comparisons for interaction effect of instructions and billboards on time to
change lanes.

Comparison df F P h2
Normal instructions e effect of billboards 2, 42 5.47 <.01 .21
- static vs. control 1, 14 8.34 <.01 .28
- changeable vs. static 1, 14 .103 >.1 .01
Report billboards e effect of billboards 2, 28 37.03 <.001 .64
- static vs. control 1, 14 41.44 <.001 .66
- changeable vs. static 1, 14 .269 >.1 .01

3-way interaction, analyses were conducted separately for each

instruction group. The simple interaction of billboard type and age Fig. 6. Report billboards group: Mean and 95% condence intervals for proportion of
was only signicant for the group instructed to report billboards, F(4, time xating on road ahead.
42) 4.88, p < .01, h2 .32. Results for this group are illustrated in
Fig. 6. When this group was divided by age, only the comparison Table 9
drivers did not show a signicant effect of billboard type. In both Post-hoc comparisons for interaction effect of age and billboards on proportion of
time xating the road ahead, report billboards group.
novice and older driver groups, contrasts showed that both static
and changeable billboards were associated with reduced time spent Comparison df F p h2
xating on the road ahead, although the older drivers showed Novice drivers e effect of billboards 2, 14 28.06 <.001 .80
somewhat less of an effect for the changeable billboards (Table 9 - static vs. control 1, 7 41.33 <.001 .86
- changeable vs. static 1, 7 2.628 >.1 .27
shows the F, p and h2 values for these analyses).
Comparison drivers e effect of billboards 2, 14 1.52 >.1 .18
For the group given normal instructions, the interaction Older drivers e effect of billboards 2, 14 15.97 <.001 .70
between billboard type and age was not signicant; nor was the - static vs. control 1, 7 31.04 <.001 .82
main effect of age. The main effect of billboard was signicant: both - changeable vs. static 1, 7 9.71 <.05 .58
static and changeable billboards were associated with less time
xating on the road ahead, as shown in Fig. 7 and Table 10.

4. Discussion The present study suggests that individual factors can affect the
distraction caused by billboards. Scanning patterns for novice and
As predicted by multiple resource theory (Wickens, 2008), the older drivers were both more affected by billboards than scanning
presence of billboards in the present experiment distracted eye for comparison drivers. Older drivers made more lane change
movements from the road ahead and delayed responses to road errors overall, but particularly when billboards were present. This is
signs. These results are similar to results found by other studies on consistent with previous research suggesting that older drivers
distraction by auditory and visual in-vehicle tasks (Burns et al., have greater difculty responding in complex road environments
2005; Engstrom et al., 2005; Parkes et al., 2007) and suggest that (e.g. Caird et al., 2005). As the population ages, it will become more
billboards, like in-vehicle forms of distraction, should be consid- important to design roads that are safe for all drivers, not just the
ered as potentially harmful. These results are practically as well as average driver.
statistically signicant; responses to road signs were delayed by The effect on response to road signs was not so marked for
half to 1 s in the presence of billboards, in which time a car trav- novice drivers. The novices took longer to change lanes in situations
elling at 70 km/h will have moved almost 20 m. without distracting billboards, and this combined with the high
variability in this group may account for the nonsignicant effect of
changeable billboards (as there is little theoretical basis for the idea
Table 8
Analysis of variance for proportion of time xating on the road ahead (*indicates that changeable billboards are less distracting than static bill-
signicant at a .05). boards). The signicance of the differences between lane change
errors at billboard and control sites was restricted by the low
Source df F p h2
number of errors overall, however the trend was clear: billboards
Between-subjects
Instructions 1 .056 .815 .00
greatly increased the number of errors in responding to road signs
Age/experience 2 1.906 .161 .08 for this group. With a young novice driver group it is not possible to
Instructions  age/exp 2 .212 .810 .01 determine whether these effects are due to age (immaturity), or
Error (F MS error) 42 (.075) inexperience; however the results are consistent with previous
Within-subjects research showing that novice drivers have less well developed
Vehicles 1 .07 .791 .00 mental models of where to look for driving-related information
Vehicles  instruct 1 .21 .651 .00 (Underwood et al., 2002).
Vehicles  age/exp 2 .76 .473 .04
Vehicles  instruct  age/exp 2 2.40 .103 .10
Individual factors include not only consistent differences such as
Error(vehicles) (F MS error) 42 (.02) a drivers age and experience, but also temporary factors such as the
*
Billboard 2 43.21 .000 .51 drivers current set of goals. The group who were asked to report
Billboard  instruct 2 .05 .953 .00 billboards spent less time looking at the road ahead, and presum-
Billboard  age/exp 4 1.45 .225 .07
*
ably more time looking at billboards than the group who received
Billboard  instruct  age/exp 4 3.00 .023 .13
Error(billboard) (F MS error) 84 (.01) normal instructions. This was particularly pronounced in the
Vehicles  billboard 2 1.70 .188 .04 novice and older driver groups. This resulted in a greater delay in
Vehicles  billboard  instruct 2 2.15 .122 .05 the time taken to change lanes when billboards were present, and
Vehicles  billboard  age/exp 4 1.39 .244 .06 an increase in the number of signs which were not followed
Vehicles  billboard  instruct  age/exp 4 .44 .780 .02
Error(vehicles  billboard) (F MS error) 84 (.00)
correctly. This has implications for drivers who are less focussed on
the task of driving (perhaps due to fatigue, or personality factors).
 J. Edquist et al. / Applied Ergonomics 42 (2011) 619e626
Fig. 7. Normal instructions group: Mean and 95% condence intervals for proportion
of time xating on road ahead.
Lead vehicles did not have the expected effects of drawing
xations towards the road ahead and increasing workload. This
could be because the vehicles did not change speed; thus the driver
only needed to match speeds once and then maintain approxi-
mately the same speed, essentially the same task as the drive
without vehicles, where they were instructed to drive at 70 km/h.
Nonetheless, the increase in lane change errors at sites with bill-
boards was larger in the drive with lead vehicles. The effect on time
to change lanes was not so straightforward, and would need to be
investigated further with better control over mediating variables.
The present study attempted to investigate the effects of
changeable billboards by including billboards that changed as
drivers approached. Unfortunately technology limitations meant
that only one image change could be programmed. The changeable
billboards used thus did not show the expected consistently greater
effects than the static billboards. Future research should examine
the effect of billboards that change more frequently than once
during the period for which they are visible, as change frequency
for changeable billboards is currently under debate in many juris-
dictions. A further concern is the issue of full motion billboards in
which the image is constantly changing; these have the potential to
be even more distracting than other types of billboards.
It should be noted that the billboards used in this study were very
simple, comprising only the logo and tagline of a company. Bill-
boards used in the real world (with more complicated pictures and
text) are likely to hold drivers attention for longer. This increases the
probability of adverse effects on driving safety; Horrey et al. (2006)
found that the length of glances away from the road ahead (in their
paper, to an in-vehicle display) correlated with response time to
a hazard, and Klauer et al. (2006) found that glances at objects away
from the road ahead totalling longer than 2 s increase crash risk.
This study also involved a fairly low workload driving environ-
ment, in which drivers were able to devote their attention to the
forward roadway 56% of the time, compared to 47% of the time in
the baseline epochs of the 100-car naturalistic driving study
(calculated from gures in Klauer et al., 2006). This may have
lessened the effects of the billboards in distracting attention from
the forward roadway. Given their frequent occurrence in complex
road environments, future research could investigate billboards in
combination with high workloads, perhaps through a more
demanding driving task, the occurrence of unexpected hazards, or
the addition of a secondary loading task.
The results of this study correspond well to the results of
another recent driving simulator experiment on billboards. Young
et al. (2009) found that the presence of roadside advertisements
increased the number of separate eye glances across the scene, and
impaired lateral control of the vehicle. They also found that drivers
subjective ratings of mental workload were higher in the condition
with advertisements.
625
Table 10
Post-hoc comparisons for proportion of time xating on the road ahead for normal
instructions group.
Comparison df F p h2
Interaction between billboard and age >.1 .04
Main effect of age >.1 .07
Main effect of billboards 2, 42 16.94 <.001 .45
- static vs. control 1, 21 39.07 <.001 .65
- changeable vs. static 1, 21 .037 >.1 .00
Simulator experiments are limited in their ability to emulate the
visual complexity of real road scenes. However, while the absolute
values for simulator measures may not precisely match values
obtained on road, relative differences between conditions still hold,
and simulator measures have been found to be valid predictors of
accident risk (Rudin-Brown and Lenn, 2010).
While much research remains to be done (particularly on
changeable and moving billboards), the present experiment has
demonstrated that even simple billboards can affect drivers
attentional allocation and performance on a high-delity simulated
driving task. This adds to the evidence that billboards also have
these potentially dangerous effects when driving on road. This
research has important implications for evidence-based policies on
roadside advertising around the world.
Acknowledgements
Jessica Edquist was supported by an Australian Postgraduate
Award (Industry) sponsored by the Department of Main Roads,
Queensland; and by a Postgraduate Publications Award from
Monash Research Graduate School.
Programming of the driving simulator was performed by Nebojsa
Tomasevic. Data parsing was performed by Ashley Verdoorn.
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