Naming ring roads
Five English words for ring roads,
which one is the world wide best?
Column |
Published in TEC, November 2009, pag. 427-428 Leonard Verhoef Contact. |
Ring roads provide an effective structure for efficient traffic flow and the circle is also an effective structure for navigation. Being able to communicate the circularity of the ring road by name and icon on signs will improve navigation in cities. |
| The ring concept |
A ring road is a large roundabout. Drivers perfectly understand the concept of a ‘ring’. The problems arise when the driver does not understand that the road he is on is circular. Most tourists get lost in Amsterdam because they don’t notice that its famous canals are visually straight but physically all are concentric circles. Having this knowledge reduces the chance of getting lost substantially and enables you to navigate without a map. |  | Walking along an Amsterdam canal you see a straight canal. However, the Amsterdam canals form concentric rings. If you don’t notice concentricity you will get lost. |
The same applies to ring roads. They look like a straight line but they go round in a circle. So it is important that the concept of the ring be flagged up with a word together with some kind of icon that is recognised by the driver to represent the ring. |  |
Smart design: Making the non-circular physical structure of a furniture shop comprehensible by presenting the chaos as a ring. Source: Ikea. |
| Naming the ring road |
Several terms are in use for ring roads. |  Ringness, not indicated, either in words or graphically. |
 Ringness, not indicated, either in words or graphically. The old situation: confusing |
| One could establish this relationship by using multiples of ten as a code for ring roads with the zero in the number indicating the road is a ring. If this were accepted practice drivers would learn to associate this code with the fact that the road is a ring road. |
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Periphery The word periphery (French: ‘Boulevard Périphérique’) is closer to representing the circularity of a ring road than a code. Unfortunately it could be interpreted as ring shaped area around a centre whereas it might be a ring in the centre. As a result inexperienced car drivers are liable to follow the sign ‘periphery’ to get out of town. |  |
This might be understood as: To the periphery It means: This is the periphery |
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Belt Closer to ringness is the concept of belt. In the US car drivers understand ‘belt way’ in this context. French and Italians will be confused. French and Italian have also a word that is only understood in those languages (Italian: Grande Raccorde Anulare). Dutch and Germans might conclude that an Anulare is a road that has been cancelled (Dutch: annuleren, German: annulieren). These languages in their turn can confuse foreigners by using the word Gürtel (Vienna) and gordel (Dutch). ‘Gordel’ is not used on signs in Holland but has the same meaning and would be understood. |  |
Donut for decoration? Donut to indicate ring? |
| All these words clearly include the concept of ringness but the meaning is not primarily related to traffic and the words are not understood by drivers not belonging to a specific language group. That is a pity because they are the ones that should know they are on a ring road in the first place. |
Ring road These language disadvantages apply less for the word ring. This word has no specific meaning. English, German and Dutch speaking drivers will understand the concept. The word is short and does not take much space. |
Circle The best choice would be ‘circle’, which is understood in most languages. It is used by London underground and Singapore public transport which both having a ‘Circle Line’. |
| For navigating in cities on rings there are more concepts than only ringness such as direction (clockwise and anti clockwise), naming and listing exits, ‘you are here’ and concentricity when there are more ring roads. Dynamics of traffic and disturbances complicates communication even more. When ringness is not verbalised correctly and not even has an appropriate icon, it is unlikely that these more complex concepts are communicated in a human efficient way. To top. |  | Downtown Circulator in Pawtucket, best term selected. |
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Contact | Leonard Verhoef. +31 (30) - 231 44 97 Parkstraat 19 3581 PB Utrecht Nederland humanefficiency.nl verhoef@humanefficiency.nl Chamber of commerce, trade register, subscription number: 39057871. |
Train driving: ETCS mmi: high speed train driving using cognitive psychology.