Exploring driving habits and safety critical behavioural intentions among road tunnel users: A questionnaire survey in Greece

With a view to enhance the safety of the road transport system, it is crucial to focus primarily on its key elements, one of which is tunnels. The significance of tunnels is based on an endogenous problem, which is the severity of accidents that may occur. Several studies and aftermaths from disastrous accidents have shown that correct users' behaviour may smooth the adverse outcomes of a potential accident. Therefore, information campaigns are requested to be conducted. Before designing such a campaign, it is vital to have explored users' current state of knowledge on the issue. This paper presents an internetmediated questionnaire survey conducted in Greece aiming to explore road tunnel users' awareness and to identify potential knowledge gaps that should be managed for the upcoming information campaigns. The results revealed that users have several misconceptions concerning the recommended behaviour both in normal and critical situations. Taking into account that users consist in the cornerstone of tunnel safety parameters, it is important to note that even a little improvement on their performance may greatly benefit the overall safety of the system. Hence, aspects highlighted in this paper could be taken into consideration by the upcoming information campaigns on the issue. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.