scholarly journals Exploring Factors Impacting Paths of Left-Turning Vehicles from Minor Road Approach at Unsignalized Intersections

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoqiang Zhang ◽  
Yuli Qi ◽  
Jun Chen

At unsignalized intersections, left-turning vehicles from minor road approach are more likely to be involved in traffic conflicts and traffic crashes and are one of the most leading factors impacting traffic efficiency and capacity. The authors of the paper observed that some drivers behaved illegally and dangerously while performing left turns from minor road approach, resulting in abnormal trajectories at unsignalized intersections. By applying binary logistic analysis, a probability prediction model was developed to explore various factors affecting probability of normal path taken by drivers while turning left from minor road approach. Based upon the model, measures such as lowering running speeds of vehicles on major road or minor road and adding more lanes on minor road can be used to encourage more drivers to take normal vehicle paths, which is helpful for the improvement of traffic safety, efficiency, and capacity. Results of the paper can be used for the guidance of design and management of unsignalized intersections.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Xiaofei Wang ◽  
Zhenzhong Ding ◽  
Kai Guo ◽  
Yongjie Lin

The weaving area is an important junction that affects the efficiency and traffic safety at the municipal interchanges. To explore the factors affecting traffic efficiency and the spatial distribution characteristics of traffic risks in the weaving areas of municipal interchanges, this study employed a microscopic traffic software of Vissim to construct a simulation model of weaving areas and evaluate the impact of road and traffic design parameters in the short weaving on traffic efficiency and risks, which includes ramp delay, mainline through lane (TL) traffic delay, average ramp speed, TL average speed, and collision rate. Through variance analysis via a large number of simulation scenarios, the weaving length is identified as the most important factor affecting traffic efficiency and risks in the short weaving area. Subsequently, three different types of weaving lengths with 350 m, 450 m, and 550 m were set to conduct the sensitivity analysis based on four performance indexes of mean acceleration and deceleration, acceleration range, deceleration range, and speed standard deviation as the representative variables of spatial risk distribution. The simulation results illustrate that a shorter weaving length has a significant influence on risk distribution, especially the highest risk probability at the positions after three-quarters of the inner and outer lanes in the short weaving area at the municipal interchange. Finally, this study verified the traffic risk reduction method of having traffic safety facilities and traffic organization at the complex interchange with double-entry and single-exit weaving areas in the city of Guangzhou, China. The research proposed a method to analyze the influence of the design parameters in the short weaving area on traffic efficiency and safety and provided a reference for the risk spatial distribution analysis and improvement in the short weaving area.


2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Zsófia Magyari ◽  
Csaba Koren ◽  
Mariusz Kieć ◽  
Attila Borsos

Many traffic accidents are caused by unforeseen and unexpected events in a site that was hidden from the driver's eyes. Road design parameters determining required visibility are based on relationships formulated decades ago. It is worth reviewing them from time to time in the light of technological developments. In this paper, sight distances for stopping and crossing situations are studied in relation to the assumed visual abilities of autonomous vehicles. Current sight distance requirements at unsignalized intersections are based among others on speeds on the major road and on ac-cepted gaps by human drivers entering or crossing from the minor road. Since these requirements vary from country to country, regulations and sight terms of a few selected countries are compared in this study. From the comparison it is remarkable that although the two concepts, i.e. gap acceptance on the minor road and stopping on the major road have different backgrounds, but their outcome in terms of required sight distances are similar. Both distances are depending on speed on the major road: gap sight distances show a linear, while stopping sight distances a parabolic function. In general, European SSD values are quite similar to each other. However, the US and Australian guidelines based on gap acceptance criteria recommend higher sight distances. Human capabilities and limitations are considered in sight field requirements. Autonomous vehicles survey their environment with sensors which are different from the human vision in terms of identifying objects, estimating distances or speeds of other vehicles. This paper compares current sight field requirements based on conventional vehicles and those required for autonomous vehicles. Visibility requirements were defined by three vision indicators: distance, angle of view and resolution abilities of autonomous cars and human drivers. These indicators were calculated separately for autonomous vehicles and human drivers for various speeds on the main road and for intersections with 90° and 60° angles. It was shown that the required sight distances are 10 to 40 meters shorter for autonomous vehicles than for conventional ones.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel James ◽  
Brendan J. Russo

Reducing fatal and serious injuries sustained in traffic crashes on tribal lands is a priority of federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. In the state of Arizona, the proportion of fatal and severe injury crashes on several areas of tribal land are 4.0% higher compared with statewide statistics. There is a need to investigate why higher proportions of fatal and severe injuries are occurring on tribal lands to plan effective countermeasures aimed at improving traffic safety in these areas. This study presents an analysis of factors affecting injury severity in crashes occurring within five tribal reservations in the state of Arizona. Crash data were obtained from the Arizona Department of Transportation, and the analysis included data for 9,597 persons involved in traffic crashes on these tribal lands for the years 2010–2016. An ordered logit model with random parameters was estimated using this data to identify factors significantly associated with severe injury outcomes in the event of a crash on tribal lands. Several person-, vehicle-, roadway-, and environmental-related variables were found to impact injury severity. For instance, alcohol and safety device usage were significantly associated with severity outcomes. The results of this study have the potential to aid transportation agencies effectively plan strategies to reduce traffic crash injuries and fatalities on tribal lands, and potential countermeasures considering the 4Es of traffic safety (engineering, education, enforcement, and emergency medical services) are discussed.


Author(s):  
Yingfeng (Eric) Li ◽  
Haiyan Hao ◽  
Ronald B. Gibbons ◽  
Alejandra Medina

Even though drivers disregarding a stop sign is widely considered a major contributing factor for crashes at unsignalized intersections, an equally important problem that leads to severe crashes at such locations is misjudgment of gaps. This paper presents the results of an effort to fully understand gap acceptance behavior at unsignalized intersections using SHPR2 Naturalistic Driving Study data. The paper focuses on the findings of two research activities: the identification of critical gaps for common traffic/roadway scenarios at unsignalized intersections, and the investigation of significant factors affecting driver gap acceptance behaviors at such intersections. The study used multiple statistical and machine learning methods, allowing a comprehensive understanding of gap acceptance behavior while demonstrating the advantages of each method. Overall, the study showed an average critical gap of 5.25 s for right-turn and 6.19 s for left-turn movements. Although a variety of factors affected gap acceptance behaviors, gap size, wait time, major-road traffic volume, and how frequently the driver drives annually were examples of the most significant.


Author(s):  
Essam Dabbour ◽  
Said M. Easa

This paper introduces realistic acceleration profiles for light-duty vehicles departing from rest at two-way stop-controlled (TWSC) intersections where minor roads (controlled by stop signs) intersect with uncontrolled major roads. The new profiles are based on current vehicle characteristics and driver behavior patterns. They are established based on actual field data collected using global positioning system data loggers that recorded the positional and speed data of various experimental vehicles starting from rest at TWSC intersections. Acceleration profiles are established in this paper and are used to develop a revised method for calculating the departure sight distance at TWSC intersections. Design tables were created to provide realistic sight distance values at TWSC intersections for different design speeds and number of lanes on the major road. It was found that the current values of intersection sight distance suggested by the design guides may be inadequate. Such values may force some approaching drivers on the major road to reduce their speeds or move to different traffic lanes to avoid conflicting with the departing vehicles. These maneuvers may have negative impacts on traffic safety. Therefore, implementing the revised method for calculating intersection sight distance, as presented in this paper, may ultimately reduce traffic collisions at TWSC intersections.


Author(s):  
Jung-Han Wang ◽  
Mohamed A. Abdel-Aty ◽  
Jaeyoung Lee

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) Part C provides a series of safety performance functions (SPFs) for different roadway conditions. The SPFs suggested in the HSM are formulated on the basis of exposure variables: the logarithms of the annual average daily traffic (AADT) on the major road and on the minor road under the base condition. In this research, data from 7,802 intersections in Florida were collected and processed. These intersections were categorized into seven types based on area type (rural or urban), number of legs (three or four), and number of approaches controlled by stop signs. Twenty-two SPF formulations, including the one suggested by the HSM, were developed for each intersection type for examination of the goodness-of-fit measures of the SPFs. In addition, the goodness of fit of each model of the 22 SPFs in each category was examined with 10-fold leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV). With a comparison of the delta values generated with the LOOCV method, it is suggested that the SPF with the logarithm of the total entering vehicle volume and the ratio of the AADT on the minor road and the AADT on the major road are important. In addition, the SPFs with the AADT on the major road and the AADT on the minor road and their logarithmic transformations are also important. Therefore, it is suggested that the future HSM compare these two SPF formulations—as suggested in the current research, along with the original SPF formulation in the manual—and select the one with the best model fit on the basis of the delta value using LOOCV.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-250
Author(s):  
Dinh Hiep ◽  
Vu V. Huy ◽  
Teppei Kato ◽  
Aya Kojima ◽  
Hisashi Kubota

Introduction: One of the significant characteristics of schools in Vietnam is that almost all parents send their children to school and/or pick up their children from school using private vehicles (motorcycles). The parents usually stop and park their vehicle on streets outside the school gates, which can lead to serious congestion and increases the likelihood of traffic accidents. Methods: The objective of this study is to find out factors affecting the picking up of pupils at primary school by evaluating the typical primary schools in Hanoi city. A binary logistic regression model was used to determine factors that influence the decision of picking up pupils and the waiting duration of parents. The behavior of motorcyclists during the process of picking up pupils at the primary school gate has been identified and analyzed in detail by the Kinovea software. Results and Discussion: The study showed that, on the way back home, almost all parents use motorbikes (89.15%) to pick up their children. During their waiting time (8.48 minutes in average), they made a lot of illegal parking actions on the street there by, causing a lot of “cognitive” errors and “crash” points surrounding in front of the primary school entrance gate. Risky picking-up behaviors were significantly observed, i.e. picking-up on opposite side of the school, making a U-turn, backing-up dangerously, parking on the middle of street, and parking on the street next to sidewalk). Conclusion: Based on the analyzed results, several traffic management measures have been suggested to enhance traffic safety and reduce traffic congestion in front of school gates. In addition, the results of the study will provide a useful reference for policymakers and authorities.


Author(s):  
Douglas W. Harwood ◽  
John M. Mason ◽  
Robert E. Brydia

The current AASHTO policy for sight distance at Stop-controlled intersections is based on a model of the acceleration performance of a minor-road vehicle turning left or right onto a major road and the deceleration performance of the following major road vehicle. An alternative intersection sight distance model based on gap acceptance is developed and quantified. Field studies that were performed to determine the critical gaps appropriate for use in sight distance design are described. It is recommended that the sight distance along the major road for a passenger car at a Stop-controlled intersection should be based on a distance equal to 7.5 s of travel time at the design speed of the major road. Longer sight distances are recommended for minor-road approaches that have sufficient truck volumes to warrant consideration of a truck as the design vehicle.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kinga Ivan ◽  
József Benedek ◽  
Silviu Ciobanu

The analysis of pedestrian–vehicle crashes makes a significant contribution to sustainable pedestrian safety. Existing research is based mainly on the statistical analysis of traffic crashes involving pedestrians and their causes, without the identification of areas vulnerable to traffic crashes that involve pedestrians. The main aim of this paper is to identify areas vulnerable to school-aged pedestrian–vehicle crashes at a local level to support the local authorities in implementing new urban traffic safety measures. The vulnerable areas were determined by computing the severity index (SI) based on the number of fatal, serious, and slight casualties throughout the 2011–2016 period in a large urban agglomeration (Bucharest). As well as the vulnerable areas, the triggering factors and the time intervals related to school-aged pedestrian–vehicle crashes were identified. The outcomes of the study showed that the vulnerable areas were concentrated only in districts 2 and 4 of Bucharest, and they were associated with high vehicle speed and pedestrians’ unsafe crossing behavior. The findings revealed that speed and age are triggering factors in generating school-aged pedestrian–vehicle crashes. The identified time peaks with a high number of traffic crashes correspond to the afternoon time intervals, when scholars go home from school. The identification of the areas vulnerable to school-aged pedestrian crashes may help local authorities in identifying and implementing measures to improve traffic safety in large urban agglomerations.


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