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.

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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.

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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.

 So important is this concept to understanding that to improve navigation, smart designers even impose ringness on structures that physically are ringless.

Several terms are in use for ring roads.
Codes like M60 (UK, Manchester) and A10 (Netherlands, Amsterdam) are convenient for computers and bureaucrats. Sadly, human eyes and brains are not designed to process numbers and numbers do not enhance orientation because there is no relationship between the code and the concept of the ring.

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.