Why don't European highway systems use shields a kin North American systems?

[Quillz]

I mean, European autoroutes tend to just put a number on a square or rectangle shape. To my knowledge, the idea of a distinctive looking highway "shield" that can visually be tied to a certain type of highway (Interstate, US highway, etc.) is not really popular over there.

Is there a reason for this? Perhaps it's easier to identify a specific number than it is a specific type of shield.

[Scott5114]

I think because of the two big influences over there, the British and German road systems, neither really use shields. (Germany does, sort of, by putting their Autobahn numbers in hexagon shapes, but I don't know about the lower-class roads.) The British system uses a letter before the route number to tell the importance of the road instead of using different highway markers. (A and B are signed, C, D, and U, when used, are not. M for motorways was added later.) If you're going to use letter prefixes like that, why have different shield types too?

There are some benefits and drawbacks to both systems. It's easier to tell I-35 apart from US 35 on the road because of shields, but they do not translate to text or speech well if the author or audience don't know the difference between an Interstate and a US route. (Note how often advertisers screw this up.) It is a lot harder to mix up A35 and B35 in speech and plain text–the correct letter is right there in the name.

[J N Winkler]

I wouldn't call the British system a huge influence except in terms of typography, because the system currently in use in Britain--called the "Worboys signs" after Sir Walter Worboys, who chaired a committee on traffic signing for all-purpose roads which devised them--is a late innovation.  The Worboys committee reported in 1963 and the signs it recommended were legislated in TSRGD 1964, which had an effective date of 1 January 1965.  Previously to that, Britain had used a system in which route numbers were much more prominent and which was therefore a hybrid between the American system (where route numbers dominate) and various European systems where destinations tend to be more prominent.  The earlier system was devised by the Maybury committee on traffic signing in 1933, but was an evolution from earlier advice on signposting which was issued in 1921.  In the older system, route numbers appeared in cartouches which were much larger than destination legends.  The size ratio between a route number and destination was in fact roughly comparable to that between shield digits and destination legend in the USA.

The Worboys signs put route numbers and destinations at equal heights and discarded privileged placement for route numbers, and thus in effect "Europeanized" the British signing system.

The older British signing system had a number of defects, which were recognized by 1960.

*  The destination legends were too small to read.

*  Britain has a high proportion of intersections which are impossible to sign as a choice of two or three alternatives separated by 90° angles.  The extreme size of the cartouches made it difficult to design small diagrammatics for these intersections which were also readable from a distance at speed.

*  For administrative reasons, the British central road administration updated route classification on a regular cycle, with route number changes following in train.  Many of the route numbers shown on signs at any given time were simply wrong.

*  There was little evidence that drivers actually relied on route numbers for navigation (the British road classification system is broadly based), so it was considered that drivers would be better served by a new signing system which made route numbers less prominent and relied more on destinations presented in accordance with the continuity principle.  (The continuity principle, which is less emphasized in US signing, stipulates that if you see a destination on a sign and choose to follow it, you must be able to see the destination on every sign associated with a point where you have to make a turn to reach that destination.)

France could be considered to have "shields" of a sort since different-colored route number cartouches date back to the Michelin concrete signs.  Similarly, the use of route number cartouches on yellow-background signs in Germany actually dates from the Weimar Republic.  However, Autobahn direction signing did not use route numbers or cartouches initially; that was a postwar development.  Instead, Autobahnen were identified by terminus cities or locations ("Autobahn München-Salzburg," e.g.) and there were little roadside posts with distances and legends like "450 km von Berlin" or "170 km nach München."  But neither the French nor the German systems elevated route numbers in prominence.  I think the main purpose of route numbers in France and Germany was to allow some differentiation between multiple routes to a given destination, since in those countries the "one destination, one route" principle is not observed as it is in the USA.  This would not have been an issue in Germany during the early period of Autobahn construction when there was minimal duplication of routes, which may explain why Autobahn route numbers were a late development.

[english si]

French route cartouches are also available in Benelux, with slight differences.

Also Worboys signage has a special font font road numbers on motorway signs, and those numbers are bigger. On primary signs, numbers are yellow, where destinations are white.

There's quite a bit of number following in the UK, and we don't do destinations like the continentals in England and Wales, so there's often complaints from foreign people on internet forums, especially about the destinations the M25 where the 3 of the 5 main control destinations are airports, and one's a tunnel/bridge (depending on what way you are going).

[agentsteel53]

some European countries use shields. 

Hungary has a pentagon (kinda like a wider "home plate") and I remember there being cutouts here and there as late as 1998.  Now they are a green square with a white outline and a white number.

Romania uses a shield similar to the US highway marker (except missing the top center point) but alas I have never seen one in person. 

[agentsteel53]

Similarly, the use of route number cartouches on yellow-background signs in Germany actually dates from the Weimar Republic. 

what color are these shields?

[Chris]

B-roads (Bundesstrassen - federal roads) have yellow signs with a black number and black frame.

[J N Winkler]

That was also true in the German Reich.

[Chris]

Typical German shields;


A43-B51 Münster-2 by Chriszwolle, on Flickr

[Quillz]

Typical German shields;


A43-B51 Münster-2 by Chriszwolle, on Flickr

Hmm... Not a fan of cutout shields, either.

[Chris]

The Romanian shield:

[J N Winkler]

The VSS-Schriften live on . . .

[Chris]

For those who love road numbers:

Hungarian shields:

[Truvelo]

I love the way M0 is used for the Budapest Ring Road. Do any other countries use the 0 number for the ring around their capital city?

As nice as those signs are, I think they show too much information in the time you've got to read them. There's far too many shields and some routes are shown on both signs.

[english si]

Belgium's R0 is the road around Brussels.

The reason why some routes are on both signs is because they head two different directions from this junction. Google maps link

Some of those shields need some sort of bracket/to symbolism, though. And the country badges just adds to the confusing mess.

[Chris]

Brussels has R0. Copenhagen has a few O-roads that indicate ring roads.

The Hungarian sign would've been much better without the useless E-numbers.

[Bickendan]

Personally, I prefer the E-routes, as they conform to a grid far better than the national systems.

That said, because they aren't universally used (I'm looking at you, UK), they do add a lot of potentially useless information.

However, the E-routes should have a specific shield akin to the US/Interstate shields, as differentiating them from France's or Spain's national routes can be annoying.

[aswnl]

A numbering grid is totally useless in Europe. As well as those E-numbers, which are just a copy of the Interstate system.
Introduced for the best sake of political unity of Europe, not for driving.

E-numbers often make no sense at all, while local A/N-numbering does. So for European motorists, who drive on control cities and not that much on road numbers (except UK...), the E-system is just a nuisance. "E30-west" wouldn't say a European anything, because wind directions aren't used combined to road numbers.

Control cities are primary information on European signs, A/N-numbering is secondairy information, in most countries shown in some sort of "status bar" between the arrows. No need to put that secondairy information in vaste shields, that's just a waste of space on the signs. A costly waste, when remembering high-rising signs have a greater moment of windforce on the gantry and thus need a heavier gantry.

E-numbering is just an extra type of information. Not used by nearly everyone.
E-routes are often weird and unlogical (e.g. E25 in the Netherlands...), and very alike 3-digit numbers for main routes are not that efficient for traffic information as 2-digit national systems.

[english si]

Indeed, aswl, we don't have a very grid shaped road network (and why on earth should a grid automatically be better), but more like connected radial networks (perhaps multiple hubs in one country) with a few tangents. Germany has reasonable grid-system, but that's it. E-numbers are also much more rigid to the grid system than Interstates, and certainly US routes. This causes useless and arbitrary routes - they selected routes of importance and then applied the grid system to them, meaning some strange routes - Holland (the area of the Netherlands) is awful for it - routes cannoning off one another, taking long ways around, stuff like that. The old system was more logical - routes were connected important radial routes, but fitted the geography a lot better.

Likewise, numbers (other than somewhat in the UK), aren't used that much for directions, but destinations are. Thus Euroroutes are pretty pointless as navigational aids. (Number and cardinal compass point would work in the UK, to some extent).

One thing though - it's a UN thing, not an EU thing - it's not really about political unity of Europe, but nor is it for driving. Of course, it is political - more E-numbers, seemingly more important. Hence why the UK had lots of them before the new system came in - to get an inset like the Rhine-Ruhr area. France seems to be doing that now, with new 3-digit routes along corridors where it hopes to build/has just built an autoroute.

And, speaking as probably the Brit most passionate about having some sort of E-number signage here (and then only where the Euroroute turns off the road or meets another Euroroute, plus confirmation signs after those junctions with dual distance units and more 'European' destination choices), it's really rather pointless, given how there's not much international through-traffic.

[vdeane]

As an American, non-grid systems make no sense to me, but other than that I can't really argue against them.  However, I will say that cardinal directions are superior to control cities for one reason: less sign clutter.  European signs tend to be jammed with way too much information.

[firefly]

I mean, European autoroutes tend to just put a number on a square or rectangle shape. To my knowledge, the idea of a distinctive looking highway "shield" that can visually be tied to a certain type of highway (Interstate, US highway, etc.) is not really popular over there.

Is there a reason for this? Perhaps it's easier to identify a specific number than it is a specific type of shield.

Most European countries use a colour code to distinguish different types of roads. That makes the use of flamboyant shields dispensable.

That said German motorway number shields are no less iconic than Interstate shields. They might be a bit more subtle though.

[agentsteel53]

Most European countries use a colour code to distinguish different types of roads. That makes the use of flamboyant shields dispensable.

That said German motorway number shields are no less iconic than Interstate shields. They might be a bit more subtle though.

I don't know if I agree with you on that.  I have never seen a hexagonal German autobahn shield used anywhere outside of Germany.  in fact, I don't remember ever seeing one in an advertisement in Germany - as opposed to the US style of "66 Motel".

I've seen a perfect '61 spec interstate shield used on a billboard in Sweden.  I couldn't quite catch the details, but the route "number" was "USA", and the company appeared to be someone importing various American brands of consumer goods. 

[Chris]

Greece uses the same shields as Germany for their motorways.

[nexus73]

Greece uses the same shields as Germany for their motorways.

Israel comes very close to the German number shield in their appearance:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=1289.0

Rick

[Chris]

Iraq also has the German route shields.