A direction sign, more fully defined as a direction, position, or indication sign by the

Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals The Convention on Road Signs and Signals, commonly known as the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, is a multilateral treaty designed to increase road safety and aid international road traffic by standardising the signing system for roa ...

, is any

road sign Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduce ...

used primarily to give information about the location of either the driver or possible destinations, and are considered a subset of the informative signs group. Direction signs are far more varied internationally than other classes of sign, as the Vienna Convention does not specify sizes, colours, symbols or positions of such signs. Direction signs are the oldest type of road sign;

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

writes about milestones being placed in the 3rd century BC, while some

fingerpost A fingerpost (sometimes referred to as a guide post) is a traditional type of sign post primarily used in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, consisting of a post with one or more arms, known as fingers, pointing in the directio ...

s in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

date back to at least the 1690s. However, it was not until the invention of the

motor car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

at the turn of the 20th century that modern direction signs evolved, with fewer words and clear design allowing them to be read at speed.

History

Pre-automobile

The first direction signs were

milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

s on the Roman road network; finding one's location on the long, straight roads was difficult, and hence, large stones were placed at intervals along the roads, giving the distance in

Roman mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...

s to nearby major cities, and usually to the capitals of major provinces. As most Roman roads diverged from

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, one of the numbers was usually the distance to the

Milliarium Aureum The ''Milliarium Aureum'' (; it, Miliario Aureo), also known by the translation Golden Milestone, was a monument, probably of marble or gilded bronze, erected by the Emperor Augustus near the Temple of Saturn in the central Forum of Ancient ...

, a large golden milestone in the centre of Rome, although sometimes other stones, such as the

London Stone London Stone is a historic landmark housed at 111 Cannon Street in the City of London. It is an irregular block of oolitic limestone measuring 53 × 43 × 30 cm (21 × 17 × 12"), the remnant of a once much larger object that had stood ...

, were used in places where measuring distances from Rome was impossible or not useful. The use of milestones continued following the decline of the Roman Empire. However, as trading between towns and regions increased, milestones were found to be inconvenient for giving directions at crossroads. As a result, the fingerpost developed. Erected by local

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

es, fingerposts were easier to read from horseback and were cheaper to make. With the development of the

turnpike Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...

and the stagecoach, the

Turnpike Roads Act 1773 Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...

was passed, making signposting compulsory to allow the riders to judge their speed and prevent them from becoming lost. Similar signs were developed in other countries and remained in use until the early-20th century, when development of the motor car made the small and often wordy signs impractical. 08 Fingerpost

Modernisation

Most early direction signs were based on the traditional styles in use in area; the United Kingdom used adapted,

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...

fingerposts for signing directions, while the United States adopted an ad hoc scheme based on traditional trail markings. These proved unwieldy, and modernisation efforts quickly sprang up to change them. However, the changes faced opposition, both from traditionalists who preferred the style or charm of older signs, and from businesses along affected routes, which feared that standardised direction signs would favour the new

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...

s, causing rural routes to fade into obscurity. The advent of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

halted sign modernisation efforts across Europe, however, and governments removed direction signs from their road networks – fearing that they would assist enemy spies and/or invading forces. The end of the war, on the other hand, presented itself as an opportunity, seized by many European nations, to set about redeveloping their directional signage systems. The construction of high-speed

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

s meant that traditional road signs were no longer practical, and so new, modern signs with bold,

sans serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ser ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

s and diagrams indicating lanes and sliproads ahead were developed. The British Worboys Committee (established in 1963) went even further, creating signs with detailed diagrams of junction layouts. Such signs have now been in use almost unchanged for over half a century.

Design

The

divides the direction, position, or indication sign category into direction signs, which are only those giving distances or directions to a given location; road identification signs (also known as " reassurance signs"), which repeat the name or number of the road, and place identification signs, which give the name of a landmark, such as a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

. Unlike the other classes of sign, direction signs remain broadly undefined by the convention; the only restrictions given are that direction signs must be either a rectangle or an arrow shaped pentagon, and that they may not contain placenames in more than two languages. Additionally, direction signs on motorways must be blue or green, while temporary direction signs are yellow or orange. As a result, different nations can have wildly different direction signs; the United States uses verbose green gantry signs almost universally in built up areas, with few diagrams beyond basic arrows,''

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices The ''Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways'' (usually referred to as the ''Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices'', abbreviated MUTCD) is a document issued by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of the Unit ...

'' 2003 edition while the United Kingdom,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and Iceland use signs with fewer words but detailed maps of the approaching junctions. Most areas use different colours to show different road types, but the implementation varies: the United Kingdom (and Ireland) uses full colour boards, colour-coded to match the type of road they are placed on, with relevant text highlighted within patches of other colours to indicate different road types using the

Guildford Rules Road signs in the United Kingdom and in its associated Crown dependencies and overseas territories conform broadly to European design norms, though a number of signs are unique: direction signs omit European route numbers and road signs gener ...

.''

Highway Code ''The Highway Code'' is a set of information, advice, guides and mandatory rules for road users in the United Kingdom. Its objective is to promote road safety. The ''Highway Code'' applies to all road users including pedestrians, horse riders ...

'' The United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as New Zealand on the other hand almost universally use the plain green signs, but some signs use different colours to highlight certain types of destination such as hospitals and

rest stop A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names include motorway serv ...

s, or, in Australia and

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, that the road is a tollway. Road signs in Israel and the Palestinian territories are of similar design to North American signage, but vary in color depending on whether the sign indicates direction for through traffic, exiting traffic, etc. Direction signs can also be used in conjunction with other types of sign: for example, in the United Kingdom, if a warning or prohibitory sign appears on a direction sign, it means that the route indicated by the sign contains the hazard or prohibition sign posted. File:Icelandic-Road-Sign.png, An Icelandic road sign, with detailed directions to nearby farmsteads. File:Road65-Freeway7.png, The Junction of Freeway 7 (Iran) and Road 65 (Iran) File:Zeichen 449 - Vorwegweiser auf Autobahnen (nach RWBA), StVO 1992.svg, A simple German sign on the approach to an

off ramp In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, using ...

. File:KS I-35 ex133.jpg, Signage along

Interstate 35 Interstate 35 (I-35) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route. It stretches from Laredo, Texas, near the Mexican border ...

in Emporia, Kansas, USA. File:Reuenthal_2153.JPG, Direction signs for a minor route to a destination (white) and tourist attraction (brown) in Switzerland

Evacuation routes

Some areas have special evacuation route signs that are to be followed in case of certain

disasters A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

. The signs point to routes either to safety or to less danger. Evacuation signs are common in areas where there is a high risk of dangers such as flash

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

activity and lahar,

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

and storm surge. For example, along the Japanese shorelines, the tsunami warning signs are linked with a network of warning sirens, typically at the top of the cliff of surroundings hills.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Traffic signs