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 introduced, for example the fingerposts in the United Kingdom and their wooden counterparts in Saxony.
Road signs in the Republic of Ireland do not differ greatly from those used elsewhere in Europe – with the notable exception that hazard or warning signs follow the "MUTCD" style of a yellow diamond. The symbols used on these warning signs do, nevertheless, resemble much more closely those used in the rest of Europe than many of those seen in the United States.
Rail Alphabet is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network. First used at Liverpool Street station, it was then adopted by the Design Research Unit (DRU) as part of their comprehensive 1965 rebranding of the company. It was later used by other public bodies in the United Kingdom.
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 generally use the imperial system of units, unlike the rest of Europe. Signs in Wales and parts of Scotland are bilingual.
Clearview, also known as Clearview Hwy, is the name of a humanist sans-serif typeface family for guide signs used on roads in the United States, Canada, Indonesia, the Philippines, Israel, Brazil and Sri Lanka. It was developed by independent researchers with the help of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, under the supervision of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). It was once expected to replace the FHWA typefaces in many applications, although newer studies of its effectiveness have called its benefits into question.
The Standard Alphabets For Traffic Control Devices,, is a sans-serif typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The font is used for road signage in the United States and many other countries around the world. The typefaces were developed to maximize legibility at a distance and at high speed. The typeface has 6 fonts, from narrow to wider strokes:
Road signs in Malaysia are standardised road signs similar to those used in Europe but with certain distinctions. Until the early 1980s, Malaysia closely practice in road sign design, with diamond-shaped warning signs and circular restrictive signs to regulate traffic. Signs usually use the Transport Heavy font on non-tolled roads and highways. Tolled expressways signs use a font specially designed for the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) which is LLM Lettering. It has two type of typefaces, LLM Narrow and LLM Normal. Older road signs used the FHWA Series fonts typeface also used in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
A highway shield or route marker is a sign denoting the route number of a highway, usually in the form of a symbolic shape with the route number enclosed. As the focus of the sign, the route number is usually the sign's largest element, with other items on the sign rendered in smaller sizes or contrasting colors. Highway shields are used by travellers, commuters, and all levels of government for identifying, navigating, and organising routes within a given jurisdiction. Simplified highway shields often appear on maps.
Transport is a sans serif typeface first designed for road signs in the United Kingdom. It was created between 1957 and 1963 by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert as part of their work as designers for the Department of Transport's Anderson and Worboys committees.
Road signs in Singapore closely follow those laid down in the traffic sign regulations used in the United Kingdom, although a number of changes over the years have introduced some slight deviations that suit local road conditions. Road signs in Singapore conform to the local Highway Code under the authority of Singapore Traffic Police.
In the U.S. state of New York, county routes exist in all 62 counties except those in the five boroughs of New York City. Most are maintained locally by county highway departments. County route designations are assigned at the county level; as a result, routes often change numbers as they cross from one county to the next due to the lack of a statewide numbering system and lack of coordination between counties. Some exceptions exist, such as County Route 36 (CR 36) in Ontario County and CR 36A in Livingston County. The assignment of routes by individual counties also results in varying system density and numbering and signage practices between the state's counties.
The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions is the law that sets out the design and conditions of use of official traffic signs that can be lawfully placed on or near roads in Great Britain and the Isle of Man. The regulations, originally introduced in 1965, were the result of the review of British road signage carried out by the Worboys Committee.
A direction sign, more fully defined as a direction, position, or indication sign by the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, is any road sign 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.
European traffic signs present relevant differences between countries despite an apparent uniformity and standardisation. Most European countries refer to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. The convention has been adopted by the following countries : Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. The convention has not been adopted by Andorra, Ireland, Iceland or Malta.
Road signs in Italy conform to the general pattern of those used in most other European countries, with the notable exception that the background of motorway (autostrada) signs is green and those for 'normal' roads is blue. They are regulated by the Codice della Strada and by the Regolamento di Attuazione del Codice della Strada in conformity with the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.
Motorway is a sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for use on the motorway network of the United Kingdom. Motorway was first used on the M6 Preston bypass in 1958 and has been in use on the UK's motorways ever since. The typeface is also used in some other countries, most notably Ireland and Portugal.
The Worboys Committee was formed by the British government to review signage on all British roads. In its July 1963 report Traffic signs: report of the committee on traffic signs for all-purpose roads, it found existing road signs to be obsolete for the increasing numbers of motor vehicles and their increasing speeds, and made over a dozen key recommendations. The committee went on to completely revise road signs in Britain, with an emphasis on symbols alone, adopting standard colour and shape practices used in mainland Europe and a new typeface. Its principles were adopted and are still the basis of all road signs in the United Kingdom.
Road signs in Indonesia are standardized road signs similar to those used in other nations but with certain distinctions. As a former Dutch colony, until the 1970s road signs in Indonesia closely followed The Netherlands rules on road signs. Nowadays, Indonesian road sign design are a mix of European, US MUTCD, Australia, New Zealand and Japanese road sign features. According to the 2014 Minister of Transport's Regulation No. 13 concerning Traffic Signs, the official typeface for road signs in Indonesia is Clearview. Indonesia formerly used FHWA Series fonts as the designated typeface though the rules are not being implemented properly.
Road signs in Malta are regulated by the Road Signs and Road Markings Regulations 1969, amended several times over the years, most recently in 2011, and are standardised by Transport Malta. Maltese road signs are divided into warning signs, regulatory signs, information signs and road markings. The Transport typeface is used on road signs as well as on road signs in the United Kingdom. Maltese road signs, regulated by The Highway Code of Malta, are based on those used in the United Kingdom, since the island nation was a British colony until 1964 when it became independent, with minor exceptions, for example, speeds are measured in kilometres per hour and distances in metres. However, road signs produced in Italy may be found in Malta and are identical to those used in Italy currently or in the past, sometimes "mirrored"; in these cases the "Alfabeto Normale" typeface is used, as in Italy. To date, in the Maltese archipelago there is therefore the coexistence of different signs on the British and, to a lesser extent, Italian model for the same function. It is rarely possible to encounter, again without any official nature, diamond-shaped warning signs similar to those used in Ireland.
This article is a summary of traffic signs used in each country.