Innovation in light relfectance value - measurement and application

摘要

Within the UK there have been recent changes to regulations concerning new buildings and new rail vehicles. One of these changes is a requirement to provide adequate visual contrast between certain features and components in order to make them identifiable to people who are visually impaired. In general this is achieved where the Light Reflectance Value (LRV) of the two surfaces differ by 30 points or more. This paper describes an innovative method for the determination of LRV and reports the results of a limited study involving 16 test subjects who were visually impaired. Whilst the innovative method provides results which are more closely aligned to the confidence rating of the test subjects, further work is required to validate the method.