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.
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways is a document issued by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) to specify the standards by which traffic signs, road surface markings, and signals are designed, installed, and used. In the United States, all traffic control devices must legally conform to these standards. The manual is used by state and local agencies as well as private construction firms to ensure that the traffic control devices they use conform to the national standard. While some state agencies have developed their own sets of standards, including their own MUTCDs, these must substantially conform to the federal MUTCD.
The U.S. Route shield is the highway marker used for United States Numbered Highways. Since the first U.S. Route signs were installed in 1926, the general idea has remained the same, but many changes have been made in the details. Originally, the shield included the name of the state in which the sign was erected and the letters "U S" on a shield-shaped sign. Over time, the shield has been simplified to consist of a white shield outline on a black square background, containing only a black route number. However, because each state is responsible for the production and maintenance of U.S. Route shields, several variants of the shield have existed over the years.
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 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.
A street name sign is a type of traffic sign used to identify named roads, generally those that do not qualify as expressways or highways. Street name signs are most often found posted at intersections; sometimes, especially in the United States, in perpendicularly oriented pairs identifying each of the crossing streets.
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.
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
Interstate is a digital typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in the period 1993–1999, and licensed by Font Bureau. The typeface is based on Style Type E of the FHWA series of fonts, a signage alphabet drawn for the United States Federal Highway Administration by Dr. Theodore W. Forbes in 1949.
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.
Toronto Subway is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed for the original section of the Toronto Transit Commission's Yonge subway. It is today used at station entrances, fare booths and track level signage throughout the system.
Road signs in Israel are regulated by the Ministry of Transportation in the Division of Transportation Planning, most recently set forth in June 2011.
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 National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) conducts research in problem areas that affect highway planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance in the United States. Spearheaded by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), part of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, it is jointly supported by federal agencies, state departments of transportation (DOTs), and other nonprofit organizations.
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.
Overpass is a geometric sans-serif digital typeface, derived from Highway Gothic, but instead with a focus on usage as a webfont on digital screens for user interfaces and websites. It was designed by Delve Withrington with Dave Bailey, Thomas Jockin, Alan Dague-Greene, and Aaron Bell between 2011–2021. Overpass comprises 18 variants: 9 font weights and corrected obliques for each weight.
LLM Lettering is a set of sans-serif typefaces developed by the Malaysian Highway Authority and used for road signage on expressways in Malaysia. The font was divided into two types: LLM Normal (Standard/Regular) and LLM Narrow (Condensed). The LLM Normal typeface is a modified form of the Italian Alfabeto Normale and Alfabeto Stretto. The lettering is special use for the Malaysian Expressway System.
Polish road signs typeface is a geometrical typeface meant to making text on Polish road signs, according to Attachment 1 of Regulation on detailed technical conditions for road signs and signals as well as road safety devices and conditions for their placement on roads. The regulation defines a construction of digits, all of the letters of Polish alphabet and the letter V, and the punctuation marks: hyphen, round brackets, comma, full stop (period) and exclamation mark.
This article is a summary of traffic signs used in each country.
