Countries and overseas territories with the same road lay-out and road signs

Road_UK said:

I want to know more!

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Actually german fonts were used temporary along the E6 in south sweden a couple of years ago ..in 2001-2002 maybe. Later on this signage was removed.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Försök_med_120_på_E6.jpg

beto_chaves said:

The Portuguese road lay-out and road signs are used in Cape Verde and also in Angola.
In Mozambique, also a former Portuguese possession, the South African road lay-out and road signs are used.

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Brazil have american lay-out and road signs but today Brazil adopted some portuguese signs like chevrons.

Many former French colonies in Africa use signs that are very much based on the French style of signposting. The English style of signposting has not really been exported to former colonies. Belize (former British Honduras) was one of the very last dependencies to gain independence, but its signposting looks more American than British.

Within Europe and throughout the world, I think that you can speak of a few "spheres of influence". Countries are simply playing copycat. Some of them were already mentioned, but here are some others:

- Albania largely mirrors Italy
- Ireland is strongly UK-influenced
- Newer Dutch motorway signage is pretty much copied from Germany
- Bolivia has copied Chile
- A few Central American countries (Guatemala, Honduras and others) have devoloped one shared system of signposting. Which is very much based on the Mexican system.
- Australia and New Zealand hold shared standards (but differences remain)
- and of course there are the systems shared between former USSR republics, former Yugoslav republics and the Czech and Slovak Republics.

xrtn2 said:

... but today Brazil adopted some portuguese signs like chevrons.

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I didn't know that! Nice!
Actually, Angola uses a mix of Portuguese and South African road lay-out and road signs as you can see here:

Mix of Portuguese and South African road lay-out and road signs in the same road:


Credits to Matthias Offodile

Portuguese style only:



Credits to muloji17

South African style only:




Credits to muloji17

I've noticed that in Luanda local road signs follow the Portuguese style, like this one:


Credits to Sérgio dos Santos

They are not colonies but just regions. Balearic, Canary islands and Ceuta and Melilla use the same system than in the rest of Spain.

In the case of Ceuta I show the typical EU signal advicing that border was 1 km ahead (yeah... most of territory is near the border but there is only one road from city to the custom control cabin at the border)

In the case of one island at Canary, they told me that it was very unusual to have road-shoulders. That made maximum 90 km/h in almost all the roads in the island.

The "point driving licence" used in Spain applies there as in other territory with no exceptions.

When I look at the NZ highways thread I think what influences they got from each Australian state.

Victoria - blue/gold tollway signs
NSW - Auckland CBD traffic lights look the same as Sydney CBD traffic lights
WA - yellow traffic light poles in suburban Auckland look the same as Perth traffic light poles.

I'm still working on the other state/territories...

New Caledonia heavily influenced by France
(Western) Samoa influenced by NZ and Australia
American Samoa influenced by United States

Road_UK said:

And Finland seems to copy the Swedish style.

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That is not quite true. The influence is 2-way. For example, the blue backround on the direction signs was in use in Finland before Sweden made updates to their palette. The original Swedish colour was very dark blue, almost black. The signs marking the beginning and the end of a populated are was taken into use first in Finland.

Even if the systems are rather similar, there are clear differences in fonts, arrows, layout, shapes, colouring, symbols, etc. Even a Finnish moose differs from the Swedish one... A few signs in use in Finland are not in use in Sweden, and vice versa. Of course, there is much coordination between the countries.



Swedish and Finnish versions: The warning signs in Finland have yellow band at the edge, and the corners are sharper. The animal is different.



No warning sign about tunnels in Finland, only the informatory version.



Different colours



Different way to express the span of the sign.



Arrowheads



Arrow shape



Bus lane




Layout



White on blue road number signs in Sweden



Road class indicated by the sign color in Finland

essendon bombers said:

When I look at the NZ highways thread I think what influences they got from each Australian state.

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Practices elevated to "Australian Standard" are often also elevated to an NZ standard. You'll find a lot of official NZ websites that refer to Australian Standard 1742, which is the Australian signing standard.

A problem in Australia is, however, that AS1742 is not very conclusive and leaves options, which causes differences between states and territories that are visible to everyone. And then you have NZ that kind of "operates" between those Australian states and territories, for the simple reason that they have to choose between the points left open by AS1742 in the same manner as the Australian states and territories have to.

g.spinoza said:

It would be interesting to know if former Italian colonies in Africa (Lybia, Ethiopia and Somalia) share similar signs to the Italian ones. Probably not, since decolonization there happened after mass motorization.

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I'm sure that I have seen signs from Libya and Ethiopia, yet they do not resemble anything Italian.

g.spinoza said:

I thought that as well. Probably Somalia had the greatest influence from Italy of the three countries (University classes were taught in Italian until the 90s).

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Here is the Ethiopian thread about roads (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1394384). There aren't many photos... and none of them seem to be Italian style...

-Pino- said:

Many former French colonies in Africa use signs that are very much based on the French style of signposting. The English style of signposting has not really been exported to former colonies. Belize (former British Honduras) was one of the very last dependencies to gain independence, but its signposting looks more American than British.

Within Europe and throughout the world, I think that you can speak of a few "spheres of influence". Countries are simply playing copycat. Some of them were already mentioned, but here are some others:

- Albania largely mirrors Italy
- Ireland is strongly UK-influenced
- Newer Dutch motorway signage is pretty much copied from Germany
- Bolivia has copied Chile
- A few Central American countries (Guatemala, Honduras and others) have devoloped one shared system of signposting. Which is very much based on the Mexican system.
- Australia and New Zealand hold shared standards (but differences remain)
- and of course there are the systems shared between former USSR republics, former Yugoslav republics and the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Click to expand...

Gibraltar is still exactly the same as mainland UK (apart from driving on the right and speed limits in km.) So is Hong Kong (apart from signs both in English and Chinese)

Is Russia the same everywhere from Finland to Vladivostok?