Road authorities are under increasing pressure from advertisers to allow video advertising in the right-of-way but are understandably concerned about whether video signs constitute a driving hazard. At the City of Toronto’s request, a comprehensive assessment of traffic safety impacts related to such signs was carried out in a series of studies involving three downtown intersections and an urban expressway site. An on-road eye fixation study was carried out to determine if drivers look at video adver- tising signs. Conflict studies were conducted to determine if there were more conflicts on intersection approaches with visible video signs than on those without such signs. A before-and-after sign installation study of headways and speeds on the urban expressway was carried out. Crashes were compared before and after sign installation at the expressway and three intersection sites. Finally, a public survey was conducted to deter- mine if video advertising was perceived to affect traffic safety. On the basis of the eye fixation study and the public survey data, it is apparent that video advertising can distract drivers inappropriately and lead to individual crashes. However, the evidence from other studies was not consistent and suggests that for the particular signs studied, overall impacts on traffic safety are likely to be small. Further studies, especially prospec- tive ones with larger crash data sets, are required to be certain about the findings. A comparison between this study and an earlier one suggests that there are large differences in driver distraction depending on the place- ment and the environment in which the sign is seen. Further studies are required to determine factors that minimize driver distraction. Road authorities are under increasing pressure from advertisers to allow commercialization of the right-of-way as one method of devel- oping revenue streams to offset budget constraints. In Toronto, Canada, numerous applications have been made for the right to erect video advertising signs at downtown intersections and along urban expressways. An on-road eye movement study of 61 commercial signs along the downtown portion of the Gardiner Expressway had raised concerns about distraction due to video advertising (1). Signif- icantly more glances and, even more important, significantly more glances that lasted 3 / 4 s or longer were made to video signs than to scrolling text, roller bar, or static billboard signs. The effectiveness of video advertising in attracting drivers’ attention is no doubt linked to its attributes of movement and brightness, which make it more likely to be noticed by drivers. In addition, video advertising may retain driver attention longer because of the continuous stream of changing images, which are potentially more interesting to look at than static images. Given the greater attention-attracting qualities of video adver- tising signs, road authorities are understandably concerned about whether these signs constitute a driving hazard. Although there is much concern about the impact of roadside ad- vertising, there have been few studies in this area, and most of them are dated and deal with static billboards rather than video advertising, which could be expected to be much more distracting (2). A review of five such studies, all carried out between 1961 and 1965, concluded that the signs did not contribute to accidents (3): two studies showed no effect, two studies that did find an effect were subsequently dis- credited, and one found an effect but did not separate the conflicts arising from entering and exiting commercial premises from the distracting effect of the signs themselves. At the request of the city of Toronto, a comprehensive assessment of traffic safety impacts related to video advertising signs was car- ried out in a series of five studies, each intended to answer specific questions, as follows: • Study 1, eye fixation. Driver’s eye movements were recorded as they drove past video signs located at three downtown intersections and along an urban expressway. This study addressed two questions: Do drivers look at video advertising signs and if so, how frequently and for how long? Do these glances occur at the expense of glances at traffic-related signs and signals, the speedometer, or rearview mirrors? • Study 2, conflicts. A conflict analysis was undertaken at two of the downtown intersections, comparing conflicts on approaches where the video sign was visible (hereafter referred to as the video approach) with those on approaches where it was not (hereafter referred to as a nonvideo approach). The question addressed was, Does the distraction from video signs lead to an increase in conflicts that might indicate a deterioration in safety? • Study 3, headways and speeds. Measures of headway and speed were obtained from loop detectors on an affected section of an urban expressway before and after the installation of a video sign. A control section was used for comparison purposes. The question addressed was, Does this distraction increase the frequency of short time headways or increase speed variance? • Study 4, crashes. Collision frequencies and patterns on the video approach were compared with those on the nonvideo approach before and after the installation of video signs for the three downtown inter- sections. In addition, collision frequencies and patterns were analyzed Traffic Safety Evaluation of Video Advertising Signs Alison Smiley, Bhagwant Persaud, Geni Bahar, Calvin Mollett, Craig Lyon, Thomas Smahel, and W. Leslie Kelman A. Smiley and T. Smahel, Human Factors North Inc., 118 Baldwin Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1L6, Canada. B. Persaud and C. Lyon, Department of Civil Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3, Canada. G. Bahar, iTRANS Consulting Inc., 100 York Blvd., Suite 300, Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1J8, Canada. C. Mollett, Regional Municipality of York, 17250 Yonge Street, Newmarket, Ontario L3Y 6Z1, Canada. W. L. Kelman, Transportation Services, City of Toronto, 100 Queen Street West, 23rd Floor, East Tower, Toronto, Ontario M5H 2N2, Canada. 105 Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1937, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2005, pp. 105–112.