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Rear signal lighting on vehicles has two primary functions: informing other drivers about the presence of a vehicle on the roadway, and alerting those other drivers to intentions of a vehicle's driver before actions such as turning or stopping occur. In the present paper, reports, articles and other technical literature, pertaining to rear lighting signal system photometric requirements and use of dynamic display features, are reviewed. The objective is to synthesize recommendations for configuring rear lighting in order to optimize systems for different ambient weather and lighting conditions, dirt accumulation, and warning functions. Research results from European, North American and Japanese contexts are discussed.

Target detection experiments were performed to examine the possibility of dimming forward lighting in lit areas while maintaining the drivers' visual performance, both with and without oncoming headlamp glare. These experimental results suggested that target detection distance was reduced as the eccentricity angle of targets increases; detection distance was reduced by up to 30 m with oncoming glare; and forward lighting systems only helped drivers detect targets located on the opponent side of oncoming glare at the highest eccentricity. These results implied that forward lighting systems can be dimmed to reduce glare without significantly impairing drivers' performance if fixed street lighting provides sufficient illuminance, therefore confirming the feasibility of AFS as a glare reduction measure.