Abstract: To examine the impact of landscape decorations in highway tunnels on driving safety, the authors apply driving simulation technology to analyze the mechanism of the spatial distribution of different landscape belts on the visual perception of drivers. Three experimental scenarios of a sidewall landscape, a crown landscape, and a full-round landscape are constructed. Eye-tracking technology integrated with AttenD algorithm is utilized to quantify visual attention behaviors within the tunnel′s visual field, including gaze distribution, gaze duration, and visual distraction metrics. The results indicate the following: (1) The field for the driving area and the dashboard area account dominate drivers′ visual resources. (2) The complexity of landscape decoration positively correlates with the proportion of visual resource allocation. Sidewall areas demonstrate stronger attraction to drivers, making them optimal for attention activation. (3) The roadway center and dashboard regions emerge as primary interest zones, consuming the majority of visual resources. (4) From the perspective of the fixation duration metric, the total fixation duration level in the peripheral visual area of the sidewall landscape scheme is the highest. The sidewall landscape exhibits prolonged single distraction durations, whereas the full-round landscape causes more frequent visual distractions. Overall, the visual distraction effect of the full-round landscape is the most prominent. The findings confirm that the spatial distribution characteristics of landscape decorations directly affect drivers′ attention allocation. It is recommended that design parameters should be optimized to balance aesthetic requirements and driving safety.    

Key words: highway tunnel, visual distraction, landscape decoration, driving safety, driving simulation