Abstract: Current highway tunnel lighting standards use brightness as the design indicator, neglecting the effects of visibility and color temperature on driving safety at tunnel entrance section. However, the visibility and color temperature can impact driving safety and visual perception. To address this, the study considers the interaction effects of different visibility levels, light source color temperatures, and brightness on driving safety. A physical experiment was designed and conducted using reaction time as a measure of driving safety. The results indicate: (1) Visibility and color temperature affect reaction time to varying degrees; (2) Under high visibility, increasing light source brightness can reduce reaction time, with a maximum decrease of about 20%. Under low visibility, the effect of increasing brightness diminishes, and excessively high brightness may cause a white wall effect, prolonging reaction time; (3)The influence of visibility on reaction time is significant at different color temperatures. Under low visibility, a low color temperature of 3 000 K is recommended.