Battenburg markings

Battenburg markings or Battenberg markings are a pattern of high-visibility markings used primarily on the sides of emergency service vehicles in several European countries, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. The name comes from the similarity in appearance to the cross-section of a Battenberg cake.

Battenburg markings were originally developed in the mid-1990s in the UK by the Police Scientific Development Branch (PSDB) (now the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST)) at the request of the national motorway policing sub-committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers. They were first developed for the United Kingdom police forces to use on traffic patrol cars, although other private organisations and civil emergency services have since started to use the pattern on their vehicles.

The brief was to create a livery for motorway and trunk road police vehicles which would maximise the visibility of the vehicles when stopped on scene, both in daylight, and under headlights from a minimum distance of 500 metres (1,600 ft), and which would distinctively mark them as police vehicles.

The key research objectives included:

The Battenburg design uses a regular pattern and the contrast between a light and a dark colour to increase conspicuity for the human eye. The lighter colour is daylight-fluorescent (such as fluorescent-yellow) for better visibility in daytime and particularly also in dusk and dawn. For night-time visibility, the complete pattern is retroreflective.

The Battenburg design typically has two rows of alternating rectangles, usually starting with yellow at the top corner, then the alternating colour, along the sides of a vehicle. Most cars use two block rows in the design (so-called full-Battenburg scheme). Some designs for cars only use a single row (so-called half-Battenburg scheme) or one and a half rows.

Pattern markings can have a camouflage effect as well concealing the outline of the vehicle, particularly in front of a cluttered background. For Battenburg markings, this can be avoided by the following means:

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