Quantification of surrogate safety measure to predict severity of road crashes at median openings

Traffic safety assessment is an integral part of transportation engineering. In a developing country like India, it is observed that in every four second, one person gets injured in road crashes. Moreover, at median openings which are usually uncontrolled in India, the severity of road crashes increase many fold. This is due to the fact that neither lane discipline nor priority rule is followed at the median openings. Conventionally, road crash data reports were used to study and analyze traffic safety. However, the drawback of this traditional method is that a lot of accidents need to be recorded for analysis and to draw any conclusions and take necessary corrective measures. In developing countries like India, available accident data are based on reports submitted by the police department of respective state governments. The accuracy of these accident data details is highly questionable. Therefore, in the recent times surrogate traffic safety measures are being used to analyze traffic safety. Various surrogate traffic measures like Deceleration Time (DT), Time to Collision (TTC), Post Encroachment Time (PET), etc. are being used to examine road safety. These values are based on the temporal and spatial proximity between road-users during possible conflict situation. Among all the traffic safety measures, PET is regarded as the most reliable and most commonly used indicator. Therefore, in this study, PET across different traffic volume levels at median opening area is calculated. A critical safe ratio has been introduced to better analyze the traffic safety at median opening based on minimum stopping sight distance (SSD) as per IRC: 66–1976 and speed to PET ratio. Finally clustering technique has been used to define various severity indices for probable road crashes at median opening area. For this study, data has been collected from different median openings located on six-lane divided urban roads.     

Exploring pedestrian surrogate safety measures by road geometry at midblock crosswalks: A perspective under mixed traffic conditions

Pedestrian safety is generally assessed using frequency of crashes, based on historical data, for a given transportation facility. However, the lack of good and reliable crash data has hampered its apposite analyses and in evaluating the effectiveness of pedestrian safety programs. To overcome this gap, traffic conflict technique (TCT) which relies mainly on the observations of critical traffic situations for safety analysis were developed. However, the applicability of TCTs and related measures under varying non-lane based heterogeneous traffic conditions prevailing in countries such as India is not widely explored. This paper attempts to evaluate pedestrian safety at urban midblock crosswalk using different surrogate safety measures, including vehicle crossing speed, post encroachment time (PET), yielding compliance of driver as well as pedestrian, and conflict rate. The number of conflicts were observed to increase as the average vehicle crossing speed increases, indicating that pedestrians are extremely vulnerable while crossing the road. The PET value for the smaller vehicles, such as two-wheelers and three-wheelers, is recorded to be lower than the heavy vehicles, such as trucks and buses. With the addition of one lane, there is a significant decrease in the PET value. The average PET values for the vehicle on eight-lane divided road is less than the six-lane divided, four-lane divided, and two-lane undivided roads. Further, the yielding compliance of the driver as well as of the pedestrian depends on the crossing speed of the approaching vehicle and the type of road geometry. Further, the rate and severity of conflicts increased with a decrease in the pedestrian crossing speed. The yielding behaviour of the drivers as well as the pedestrian's yielding compliance varies by location, highlighting the effect of individual and demographic characteristics on pedestrian crossing behaviour.     

Car drivers' road safety performance: A benchmark across 32 countries

The road safety performance of a country and the success of policy measures can be measured and monitored in different ways. In addition to the traditional road safety indicators based on the number of fatalities or injured people in road traffic crashes, complementary road safety performance indicators can be used in relation to vehicles, infrastructure, or road users' behaviour. The last-mentioned can be based on data from roadside surveys or from questionnaire surveys. However, results of such surveys are seldom comparable across countries due to differences in aims, scope, or methodology.This paper is based on the second edition of the E-Survey of Road Users' Attitudes (ESRA), an online survey carried out in 2018, and includes data from more than 35,000 road users across 32 countries. The objective is to present the main results of the ESRA survey regarding the four most important risky driving behaviours in traffic: driving under the influence (alcohol/drugs), speeding, mobile phone use while driving, and fatigued driving. The paper explores several aspects related to these behaviours as car driver, such as the self-declared behaviours, acceptability and risk perception, support for policy measures, and opinions on traffic rules and penalties.Results show that despite the high perception of risk and low acceptability of all the risky driving behaviours analysed, there is still a high percentage of car drivers who engage in risky behaviours in traffic in all the regions analysed. Speeding and the use of a mobile phone while driving were the most frequent self-declared behaviours. On the other hand, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs was the least declared behaviour. Most respondents support policy measures to restrict risky behaviour in traffic and believe that traffic rules are not being checked regularly enough, and should be stricter.The ESRA survey proved to be a valuable source of information to understand the causes underlying road traffic crashes. It offers a unique database and provides policy makers and researchers with valuable insights into public perception of road safety.     

基于GIS分析的深圳市道路交通事故空间分布特征研究

掌握城市道路交通事故空间分布特征是城市道路交通安全管理的重要基础。基于深圳市2014~2016年的道路交通事故数据，首先应用地理编码方法对原始事故记录进行空间定位，形成事故的空间分布。其次针对考虑/不考虑路网密度的2种情况，应用密度分析方法对道路交通事故多发的区域和事故严重程度较高的区域进行鉴别，比较2种情况下区域分布的差异并分析造成这种差异的可能原因。最后利用异常点分析和热点分析2种空间聚类分析模型对事故严重程度较高的区域进行进一步鉴别，并对密度分析和聚类分析2种方法得到的结果进行了比较。密度分析结果表明：就事故频度而言，深圳市中心城区单位面积上的交通事故频度较高，而郊区单位长度道路上的交通事故分布更为密集；就事故严重程度而言，郊区的交通事故平均严重程度高于市中心区域。造成上述差异的原因可能与郊区道路限速较高等因素有关。聚类分析结果与密度分析结果相近，在郊区形成了高严重程度的事故聚类，而在中心城区形成了低严重程度的事故聚类，说明郊区的交通事故严重程度总体高于市中心区域。从2种方法的比较来看，密度分析简单易行，有助于交通管理部门对城市交通事故空间分布特征直观快速的了解；聚类分析可精确到事故点，为精细化的交通安全管理工作提供支撑。研究结果表明基于密度分析和聚类分析的研究方法对于确定道路交通事故空间分布特征有良好的作用。     

What affects pedestrian crossing difficulty at urban intersections in a developing country?

In developing countries, road traffic crashes involving pedestrians have become a foremost concern. At present, road safety assessment plans and selection of interventions are primarily restricted to traditional approaches that depend on the investigations of historical crash data. However, in developing countries such as India, the availability, consistency, and accuracy of crash data are major concerns. In contrast, proactive approaches such as studying road users' risk perception have emerged as a substitute method of examining potential risk factors. An individual's risk perception offers vital information on probable crash risk, which may be beneficial in detecting high-risk locations and major causes of crashes. Since the pedestrian fatality risk is not uniform across the urban road network level, it may be expected that pedestrians' perceived risk measured in terms of “crossing difficulty” would also vary across the sites. In this perspective, the present paper establishes a mathematical association between the pedestrians' perceived “crossing difficulty” and actual crashes. The model outcome confirms that pedestrians' perceived crossing difficulty is a good surrogate of fatal pedestrian crashes at the intersection level in Kolkata City, India. Subsequently, to examine the impact of traffic exposures, road infrastructure, land use, spatial factors, and pedestrian-level attributes on pedestrians' “crossing difficulty”; a set of Ordered Logit models are developed. The model outcomes show that high vehicle and pedestrian volume, vehicular speed, absence of designated bus stop, the presence of inaccessible pedestrian crosswalk, on-street parking, lack of signalized control (for both vehicle and pedestrian), inadequate sight distance, land use pattern, slum population, pedestrian-vehicular post encroachment time, waiting time before crossing, road width, and absence of police enforcement at an intersection significantly and positively increase pedestrian's crossing difficulty at urban intersections. To end, the model findings are advantageously utilized to develop a set of countermeasures across 3E's of road safety.     

Using machine leaning techniques for evaluation of motorcycle injury severity

There is a growing interest in the application of the machine learning techniques in predicting the motorcycle crash severity. This is partly due to a progress in autonomous vehicles technology, and machine learning technique, which as a main component of autonomous vehicle could be implemented for traffic safety enhancement. Wyoming's motorcycle crash fatalities constitute a concern since the count of riders being killed in motorcycle crashes in 2014 was 11% of the total road fatalities in the state. The first step of crash reduction could be achieved through identification of contributory factors to crashes. This could be accomplished by using a right model with high accuracy in predicting crashes. Thus, this study adopted random forest, support vector machine, multivariate adaptive regression splines and binary logistic regression techniques to predict the injury severity outcomes of motorcycle crashes. Even though researchers applied all the aforementioned techniques to model motorcycle injury severities, a comparative analysis to assess the predictive power of such modeling frameworks is limited. Hence, this study contributes to the road safety literature by comparing the performance of the discussed techniques. In this study, Wyoming's motorcycle crash injury severities are modeled as functions of the characteristics that give rise to crashes. Before conducting any analyses, feature reduction was used to identify a best number of predictors to be included in the model. Also to have an unbiased estimation of the performance of different machine learning techniques, 5-fold cross-validation was used for model performance evaluation. Two measure, Area under the curve (AUC), and confusion matrix were used to compare different models' performance. The machine learning results indicate that random forest model outperformed the other models with the least misclassification and higher AUC. It was also revealed that a dichotomous response variable, with fatality and incapacitation injury in one category, along with all other categories in another group would result in a lower misclassification rate than a polychotomous response variable. This might result from the nature of motorcycle crashes, lacking a protection compared with passenger cars, preventing machine learning technique to get trained properly. Moreover, the most important variables identified by the random forest model are those related to the operating speed, resentful other party, traffic volume, truck traffic volume, riding under the influence, horizontal curvature, wide roadway with more than two lanes and rider's age.     

团雾天气下高速公路交通事故特征分析

近年来团雾天气下高速公路交通事故频繁发生,对交通安全管理提出了新的挑战.文中以沪宁高速公路沿线4 174站次的团雾过程和74起团雾天气下的交通事故数据为基础,分析了团雾的发生规律和团雾天气下高速公路交通事故特征.研究发现:秋、冬、春三季团雾发生频率高,发生时段主要是在后半夜的00:00时至凌晨06:00时之间,临湖环境和临江路段由于特殊的地形和水汽输送通道而成为团雾高发的区域.1年中的10~11月、1~2月、4~5月,1d中的早上07:00~08:00是团雾天气下交通事故高发期;事故形态主要为追尾,伤亡程度十分严重,死亡人数3人及以上的事故数占55.41%.事故涉及车辆多且损毁严重,涉及10辆以上的事故占75%左右.70%左右的事故造成的交通中断或滞留时间在5h以上.      

Macroscopic analysis on the frequency and severity of pedestrian crashes on National Roads in Metro Manila,Philippines

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users; thus, understanding the primary factors that lead to pedestrian crashes is a chief concern in road safety. However, owing to the limitations of crash data in developing countries, only a few studies have evaluated the comprehensive characteristics of pedestrian crashes, specifically on different road types. This study attempted to develop pedestrian crash frequency and severity models on national roads by using the road characteristics and built environment parameters, based on the road crash data (2016–2018) that involved pedestrians in Metro Manila, Philippines. Remarkable findings included primary roads, presence of footbridges, road sections with bad surface conditions, and increased fractions of commercial, residential, and industrial roads, which exhibited a greater likelihood of pedestrian crashes. Crashes involving elderly pedestrians, heavier vehicles, late-night hours, fair surface conditions, and open spaces were associated with increased likelihoods of fatal outcomes. Essentially, this study provides a macroscopic perspective in understanding the factors associated with the severity and frequency of pedestrian crashes, and it would aid the authorities in identifying proper countermeasures.     

Modeling two-way stop-controlled intersection crashes with zero-inflated models on Louisiana rural two-lane highways

Intersection safety continues to be a crucial issue throughout the United States. In 2016, 27% of the 37,461 traffic fatalities on U.S. roadways occurred at or near intersections. Nearly 70% of intersection-related fatalities occurred at unsignalized intersections. At such intersections, vehicles stopping or slowing to turn create speed differentials between vehicles traveling in the same direction. This is particularly problematic on two-lane highways. Research was performed to analyze safety performance for intersections on rural, two-lane roadways, with stop control on the minor roadway. Roadway, traffic, and crash data were collected from 4148 stop-controlled intersections of all 64 Parishes (counties) statewide in Louisiana, for the period of 2013 to 2017. Four count approaches, Poisson, Negative Binomial (NB), Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) and Zero-inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) were used to model the number of intersection crashes for different severity levels. The results indicate that ZIP models provide a better fit than all other models. In addition to traffic volume, larger curve radii of major and minor roads and wider lane widths of major roads led to significantly smaller crash occurrences. However, higher speed limits of major roads led to significantly greater crash occurrences. Four-leg stop-controlled intersections have 35% greater total crashes, 49% greater fatal and injury crashes, and 25% greater property damage only (PDO) crashes, relative to three-leg intersections.     

Crash prediction model for two-lane rural highways in the Ashanti region of Ghana

Crash Prediction Models (CPMs) have been used elsewhere as a useful tool by road Engineers and Planners. There is however no study on the prediction of road traffic crashes on rural highways in Ghana. The main objective of the study was to develop a prediction model for road traffic crashes occurring on the rural sections of the highways in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The model was developed for all injury crashes occurring on selected rural highways in the Region over the three (3) year period 2005–2007. Data was collected from 76 rural highway sections and each section varied between 0.8 km and 6.7 km. Data collected for each section comprised injury crash data, traffic flow and speed data, and roadway characteristics and road geometry data. The Generalised Linear Model (GLM) with Negative Binomial (NB) error structure was used to estimate the model parameters. Two types of models, the ‘core’ model which included key exposure variables only and the ‘full’ model which included a wider range of variables were developed. The results show that traffic flow, highway segment length, junction density, terrain type and presence of a village settlement within road segments were found to be statistically significant explanatory variables (p < 0.05) for crash involvement. Adding one junction to a 1 km section of road segment was found to increase injury crashes by 32.0% and sections which had a village settlement within them were found to increase injury crashes by 60.3% compared with segments with no settlements. The model explained 61.2% of the systematic variation in the data. Road and Traffic Engineers and Planners can apply the crash prediction model as a tool in safety improvement works and in the design of safer roads. It is recommended that to improve safety, highways should be designed to by-pass village settlements and that the number of junctions on a highway should be limited to carefully designed ones.     

基于动态风险饱和度的高速公路交通安全分析

为了反映高速公路运营安全状况，提出了动态风险饱和度理论，构建了动态风险饱和度模型和计算方法。依据路段不同交通饱和度下车辆的驾驶行为，以路段交通安全为约束，研究了跟车行驶和换道行驶2种驾驶状态下，考虑车速变化及雾天等特殊天气条件影响的路段平均最小安全车头时距计算方法，利用建立的安全车头时距与安全流量之间的转换关系，得到不同驾驶状态下的路段安全流量。在不同车辆驾驶状态切换阈值下，计算路段实际交通流量与路段安全流量的比值得到高速公路路段动态风险饱和度值。以G3高速公路某改扩建路段所在路网为例进行验证，计算得到了路网中各路段不同切换阈值下的动态风险饱和度值。动态风险饱和度随着交通饱和度的增大，呈现稳定的先增大后减小的规律，且在换道行驶状态时达到最大，在跟车行驶状态时开始下降，与现有交通安全状态分析相吻合。相较于交通饱和度，动态风险饱和度更能够反应出高速公路路段交通安全动态变化的规律。      

Road characteristics and environment factors associated with motorcycle fatal crashes in Malaysia

This study aims to determine risk factors contributing to traffic crashes in 9,176 fatal cases involving motorcycle in Malaysia between 2010 and 2012. For this purpose, both multinomial and mixed models of motorcycle fatal crash outcome based on the number of vehicle involved are estimated. The corresponding model predicts the probability of three fatal crash outcomes: motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crash, motorcycle fatal crash involving another vehicle and motorcycle fatal crash involving two or more vehicles. Several road characteristic and environmental factors are considered including type of road in the hierarchy, location, road geometry, posted speed limit, road marking type, lighting, time of day and weather conditions during the fatal crash. The estimation results suggest that curve road sections, no road marking, smooth, rut and corrugation of road surface and wee hours, i.e. between 00.00 am to 6 am, increase the probability of motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crashes. As for the motorcycle fatal crashes involving multiple vehicles, factors such as expressway, primary and secondary roads, speed limit more than 70 km/h, roads with non-permissible marking, i.e. double lane line and daylight condition are found to cause an increase the probability of their occurrence. The estimation results also suggest that time of day (between 7 pm to 12 pm) has an increasing impact on the probability of motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crashes and motorcycle fatal crashes involving two or more vehicles. Whilst the multinomial logit model was found as more parsimonious, the mixed logit model is likely to capture the unobserved heterogeneity in fatal motorcycle crashes based on the number of vehicles involved due to the underreporting data with two random effect parameters including 70 km/h speed limit and double lane line road marking.     

基于平均车速和车速标准差的路段安全分析方法

以我国几条典型高速公路交通事故统计资料为基础,研究了车辆平均车速、车速标准差对路段交通安全的影响。首先分析了车辆平均车速、车速标准差对路段事故率的影响机理;然后利用统计样本进行了路段事故率与平均速度、速度离散性、车速标准差系数的偏相关分析,从计算结果发现分析路段事故率与车速离散性的相关系数最大,表明影响分析路段交通安全的主要因素是车速分散性;最后采用质量控制法,筛选出同类型路段事故多发路段,并提出了同类型路段车速离散性临界值的确定方法。研究结果表明,在平均车速低于设计车速时,为降低道路事故率,应着重控制车速分散性。     

基于元胞自动机模型的路侧停车行为对交通流的影响研究

针对路侧停车带来的进出停车位排队延误、低速巡游降低通行效率、过量停车加剧交通负荷等问题,研究了路侧停车对路段动态交通流的影响分析方法。基于视频识别算法,提取路侧停车车辆在驶入车位过程中的运行轨迹和速度波动数据,解析路侧停车过程中的驶入行为特性,并按照行为差异将停车车辆停车全过程细分为进入路段、寻找车位、找到车位、驶入车位、静止停放、驶离车位、汇入路段和错失车位8类状态;分别依据停车车辆和通行车辆的实际驾驶行为,从跟驰特征、速度矫正、换道规则和位置更新等方面对路侧停车元胞自动机模型进行了改进;在选择目标车位时综合考虑了步行至目的地时间和驶入车位耗时2个要素。与常规通行车辆相比,深入分析了停车车辆提前换道和停车完后汇入路段行为对后车的影响。基于实际交通流数据对仿真模型进行参数标定,经验证,模型拟合度为77.6%;仿真分析了在差异化的停车需求强度下,巡游速度对道路通行能力和延误时间的影响规律。结果表明:固定的巡游速度和停车需求强度下,道路延误时间随道路交通量先增加后减少;在低停车需求强度下,巡游速度对道路通行能力影响微弱,在高停车需求强度下,当巡游速度从30 km/h降低至20 km/h,外侧车道饱和流量降低500 veh/h,最高延误时间增加105 s。      

信号交叉口右转机动车与行人和非机动车冲突研究

研究的主要内容为:未设置右转专用相位的信号灯控制道路交叉口右转机动车流与行人和非机动车的冲突行为,包括冲突数据的采集和提取、右转车流受到干扰前后速度与过街时间对比分析以及机非冲突速度-距离模型。以现实交通数据为基础,通过软件提取右转机动车与行人和非机动车冲突数据,建立标准统一的冲突数据库,以此为基础对比分析右转车流正常行驶状态和受到干扰情况下通过道路交叉口时的车速和过街时间,并建立右转车辆距离机非冲突点不同位置时所对应不同速度的统计模型。研究结果对右转专用相位设立标准的建立和相应信号配时方案的设计具有一定的工程指导意义。     

Evaluation of risk factors for road accidents under mixed traffic: Case study on Indian highways

This paper presents an evaluation of risk factors for highway crashes under mixed traffic conditions. The basis of selecting study sites was abutting land use, roadway, and traffic characteristics. Accordingly, the study selected thirteen segments on the existing highway network in the state of West Bengal of India, covering a wide spectrum of such road attributes. A systematic investigation based on site-specific accident data to capture the highway sections' safety features revealed that the crash rate has steadily increased for years with traffic regardless of roadway category and conditions. A number of risk factors that affect road accidents were identified; they are mid-block access, pavement and shoulder conditions, vehicle involvement, time of day, and road configuration, i.e., two and multi-lane. The empirical observation indicates that the crash rate is relatively lower on multi-lane highways; however, the severity of any crash on such a road is relatively high. Notably, the crash frequencies on such roads are less during daylight hours due to the lane-based unidirectional traffic movement. This is quite the opposite during nighttime when drivers exhibit an inability to meet traffic contingencies, thereby increasing crash risk. The majority of crashes on two-lane highways are, on the other hand, due to unsafe driving manoeuvers. The study also observed that frequent mid-block accesses and poor shoulder conditions reduce scopes to rectify driving errors and increase crash risk as a consequence. The paper subsequently suggests proactive approaches to identify safety deficits at the time of planning and designing.     

Factors affecting severity of motorcycle accidents on Thailand's arterial roads: Multiple correspondence analysis and ordered logistics regression approaches

Thailand was classified as a middle-income country and ranked second highest in terms of road traffic fatality rate in the world in 2015. By 2018, this ranking went up to ninth in world which may be because of various earnest safety policies implementation, supporting road safety research and establishing a road safety directing center. However, crash fatality rate has considerably remained high until recent year, indicating a clear need for further related research. Considering severity of the crashes, the majority of fatal crashes involved the motorcycle road user. Therefore, motorcycle crashes are important issues and should be considered to mitigate fatality due to immoderate proportion of motorcycle road user and motorcyclist fatality. This study aims to identify factors that influence the severity of motorcycle accidents on Thailand's arterial roads by employing ordered logistic regression and multiple correspondence analysis. The results demonstrated that although both analyses were relatively different, they provided similar results. Age, road lanes, and helmet wearing were significant factors that influenced the severity of motorcycle accidents. The results could serve as reference for planning strategies or organizing campaigns to reduce and prevent death owing to road traffic accidents, which may enhance the overall image of road traffic safety in Thailand.     

道路因素对典型较严重道路交通事故严重性的影响分析

基于道路交通事故数据探究事故影响因素对于认识事故的影响因素、提高交通安全水平具有重要意义。利用近年来国内典型较严重道路交通事故数据,应用泊松模型和负二项模型,以区分事故形态的方式建立追尾事故、侧碰事故及撞行人事故的事故死亡率的道路影响因素分析模型。这些模型以三类事故中涉及人员的死亡数为因变量,以一系列道路因素为自变量,将事故涉及人数作为偏移变量。模型的具体形式以过离散系数及赤池信息量准则(AIC)为依据进行选择。结果显示,追尾事故的死亡率与道路等级、路侧防护设施显著相关;侧碰事故则与天气、路表情况、路口路段位置、坡度以及道路结构有关;撞行人事故与路表情况、道路等级、车道数、平曲线半径有关。本文拓展了事故严重性研究的深度,其研究成果对于更好地利用重特大事故的深入调查数据有现实意义,也可为事故分析及道路设计等提供借鉴。      

基于车轴图谱的城市道路汽车运行轨迹特性分析

为探究城市道路行车轨迹与路侧之间的横向距离对车辆运行的影响,提高驾驶员行车安全,在某市滨海路进行汽车运行轨迹样本采集试验,使用AxleLight RLU11系列路侧交通数据采集系统分车道采集试验路段汽车运行轨迹样本,利用SPSS Statistics对试验路段不同车道车辆运行轨迹样本进行数据处理,绘制不同行车道运行车辆横向距离的累积频率曲线,计算得到汽车运行轨迹与路侧的横向距离D85,通过绘制行驶车辆距路侧的横向距离直方图,得到不同车道的车辆分布规律。结果显示,驾驶员大多数偏向选择在内侧车道运行。根据试验路段内外2条车道车辆横向距离和运行轨迹特性,可为城市道路交通安全设施的设置提供理论依据,以期提高城市道路交通运行安全。