Evaluation of a Low-Cost Program of Road System Traffic Safety Reviews for County Highways

2003 ◽  
Vol 1819 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Ford ◽  
Eugene C. Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Department Of Transportation ◽  
Rural County ◽  
California Department ◽  
Total Cost ◽  
The Road ◽  
Mendocino County ◽  
Accident Data ◽  
Road System

Mendocino County is a large rural county in northern California with more than 1,000 centerline miles of county-maintained roads. The terrain is mountainous, with a few small inland valleys. During the 1990s, the Mendocino County Department of Transportation developed a program of road system traffic safety reviews to improve signing and markings on the arterials and collectors in the system. The effectiveness of the program was measured by comparing accident data for the reviewed roads with data for roads not included in, or influenced by, the reviews. To control for different groups of factors, two sets of control roads were selected—county-maintained roads not reviewed and state highways within the county. Over two consecutive 3-year review cycles, the number of accidents on the reviewed roads fell by 42.1%, while on the county-maintained roads not reviewed they increased by 26.5%, and on the state highways they fell by 3.3%. The total cost to conduct the reviews and implement the recommended changes was $ 79,300. The accident histories of the control roads were used to define the limits of the range of probable benefits. On the basis of average accident costs provided by the California Department of Transportation, calculated savings ranged from $ 12.58 million to $23.73 million, yielding a costs-to-benefits ratio between 1:159 and 1:299. The county is expanding the road system traffic safety review program to cover its entire maintained road system.

scholarly journals Raspberry Pi-Based Low-Cost Connected Device for Assessing Road Surface Friction

Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miha Ambrož ◽  
Uroš Hudomalj ◽  
Alexander Marinšek ◽  
Roman Kamnik
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Road Network ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Measurement Data ◽  
Automatic Measurement ◽  
Raspberry Pi ◽  
Measuring Device ◽  
The Road ◽  
Measuring Devices ◽  
On The Road

Measuring friction between the tyres of a vehicle and the road, often and on as many locations on the road network as possible, can be a valuable tool for ensuring traffic safety. Rather than by using specialised equipment for sequential measurements, this can be achieved by using several low-cost measuring devices on vehicles that travel on the road network as part of their daily assignments. The presented work proves the hypothesis that a low cost measuring device can be built and can provide measurement results comparable to those obtained from expensive specialised measuring devices. As a proof of concept, two copies of a prototype device, based on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer, have been developed, built and tested. They use accelerometers to measure vehicle braking deceleration and include a global positioning receiver for obtaining the geolocation of each test. They run custom-developed data acquisition software on the Linux operating system and provide automatic measurement data transfer to a server. The operation is controlled by an intuitive user interface consisting of two illuminated physical pushbuttons. The results show that for braking tests and friction coefficient measurements the developed prototypes compare favourably to a widely used professional vehicle performance computer.

scholarly journals Low-Cost Road Construction and Rehabilitation in Unstable Mountain Areas

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1152-1156
Author(s):  
Manish Jagannath Datar
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Financial Management ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Road Construction ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
The Road ◽  
Road Traffic Safety

Abstract: The mountain roads are impacted by social, environmental and economic challenges. The financial management around the road construction and rehabilitation requires fine management and administrative skills to be done effectively by the local and the federal authorities. The objective of this study is to understand the factors affecting the low-cost road construction and rehabilitation in the unstable mountain areas and to analyze the solutions to the specific barriers. The materials and methods used here is a best evidence review focusing on the existing literature that emphasizes on the above-mentioned research problem. Global evidence has been used in order to draw a greater idea and explanation about the research topic. The results focus on the importance of technology leadership, financial management, risk control and mitigation, sociocultural benefits and socioeconomic scalability of the low-cost road construction and rehabilitation projects. The workforce management and stakeholder relations are very important as well for the effective running of the construction projects without any interference. The partnerships between the public and the private organizations is very much vital for ethical and regulatory compliances which is one of the major findings of the study. The sociocultural impact and the road traffic safety considerations are to be assessed properly in order to prevent and mitigate any project risk which is also a very important finding.

scholarly journals Automated Incident Detection Using Real-Time Floating Car Data

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Houbraken ◽  
Steven Logghe ◽  
Marco Schreuder ◽  
Pieter Audenaert ◽  
Didier Colle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Field Trials ◽  
Traffic Monitoring ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Feasibility Trial ◽  
Incident Detection ◽  
The Road ◽  
Floating Car Data

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of a live Automated Incident Detection (AID) system using only Floating Car Data (FCD) in one of the first large-scale FCD AID field trials. AID systems detect traffic events and alert upcoming drivers to improve traffic safety without human monitoring. These automated systems traditionally rely on traffic monitoring sensors embedded in the road. FCD allows for finer spatial granularity of traffic monitoring. However, low penetration rates of FCD probe vehicles and the data latency have historically hindered FCD AID deployment. We use a live country-wide FCD system monitoring an estimated 5.93% of all vehicles. An FCD AID system is presented and compared to the installed AID system (using loop sensor data) on 2 different highways in Netherlands. Our results show the FCD AID can adequately monitor changing traffic conditions and follow the AID benchmark. The presented FCD AID is integrated with the road operator systems as part of an innovation project, making this, to the best of our knowledge, the first full chain technical feasibility trial of an FCD-only AID system. Additionally, FCD allows for AID on roads without installed sensors, allowing road safety improvements at low cost.

Methods and Metrics for Evaluation of an Automated Real-Time Driver Warning System

2005 ◽  
Vol 1937 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-95
Author(s):  
C. Arthur MacCarley
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Warning System ◽  
California Department ◽  
Flow Parameters ◽  
Management Personnel ◽  
Accident Data ◽  
Real Time Information

There is significant interest among traffic management personnel in the use of automated warning systems to provide drivers with real-time information on hazardous conditions related to traffic, limited visibility, or roadway obstructions. However, the effectiveness of such systems in achieving desired traffic safety improvements has not yet been well quantified. Relative influences on traffic safety can be assessed in many ways, and overall conclusions must be based on an appropriate set of metrics and methodologies for a particular implementation. This work, supported by the California Office of Traffic Safety and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), builds on prior research to develop, deploy, and test various metrics and methods to evaluate a large-scale real-time driver warning system, the Caltrans automated warning system, installed on Interstate 5 and State Route 120 near Stockton, California. Methods include the analysis of historical accident data over an 11-year period, a direct assessment of the operational behavior of the system correlated with accident data, and a study of the direct effects of real-time warning messages on driver behavior. Instrumentation deployed to facilitate these detailed analyses is described. The resultant body of data supports the correlation of measurable traffic flow parameters with relative traffic safety.

Developing Safety Management Tools for State Departments of Transportation

2013 ◽  
Vol 2364 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-43
Author(s):  
Koohong Chung ◽  
Offer Grembek ◽  
Jinwoo Lee ◽  
Keechoo Choi
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
False Positive Rate ◽  
Qualitative Description ◽  
Department Of Transportation ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
California Department ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Highway Safety Manual ◽  
Positive Rate

Two safety management tools have recently been developed for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). One is the continuous risk profile (CRP) approach, which is a network screening procedure, and the other is the California Safety Analyst (CASA), a web-based application designed to assist state safety engineers in conducting safety investigations and in documenting their findings. This paper provides a qualitative description of the two tools and summarizes feedback from more than 100 Caltrans safety engineers who attended demonstrations of the web-based application. Findings from both empirical analysis and the survey indicate that CRP can significantly reduce the false positive rate and that CASA can greatly improve the efficiency of traffic safety investigations. However, misunderstandings remain about the relationship between the CRP approach, other methods explained in the Highway Safety Manual, and different safety management tools. The misunderstandings create challenges for the deployment of CRP and CASA in California.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 268-273
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Road Construction ◽  
Bank Loan ◽  
Transport Costs ◽  
Total Cost ◽  
The Road ◽  
International Bank ◽  
Highway Network ◽  
October 17

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced on October 17, 1962, a loan of $22 million to Israel for highway construction and improvement. During the next four and onehalf years, about 512 inter-urban highways were to be built or reconstructed to higher standards to provide better communication with ports, to reduce traffic congestion and transport costs, and to improve traffic safety. About 155 miles of feeder and access roads, linking agricultural and other settlements to the main highway network, were also to be improved. The total cost of the road construction and improvements was estimated at $46 million; the Bank loan of $22 million was to cover the foreign exchange requirements of this work and also of related imported equipment and services. The loan was for a term of seventeen years, and amortization was to begin in January 1967.

scholarly journals California’s Graduated Driver License Law

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Males
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
Traffic Fatalities ◽  
California Department ◽  
Fatal Accidents ◽  
Graduated Driver Licensing ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Accident Data

Many traffic safety researchers believe Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) laws save lives by imposing restrictions, stronger licensing requirements, and delayed licensure status on drivers under age 18. To determine the effects of California’s GDL law on traffic fatalities among older (age 18-19) and younger (age 16-17) teens by age, sex, accident characteristics, and license status, mortality data from California’s Center for Health Statistics, driver and accident data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and population data from the California Department of Finance were analyzed for the 1995-2004 period. Compared to California who began driving before the GDL law took effect and to corresponding trends among Californians ages 20 through 44, 16- and 17-year-olds subject the GDL law experienced net decreases of 13% in motor vehicle fatality rates and 14% in driver involvements in fatal accidents. However, 18- and 19-year-olds subjected to GDL programs experienced net increases of 11% in traffic fatalities and 10% in involvements of drivers in fatal accidents, more than offsetting the declines among younger teenagers. These results support reassessment of the effects of the GDL law, including its specific requirements, on older teenagers.

The Application of Traffic Conflict Technique as a Road Safety Evaluation Method: A Case Study of Hasselt Intersection

2016 ◽  
Vol 845 ◽  
pp. 394-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fardzanela Suwarto ◽  
Kami Hari Basuki
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Safety Evaluation ◽  
Road User ◽  
The Road ◽  
Traffic Conflict ◽  
Accident Data

The majority of traffic safety evaluations in the world generally have been conducted by colecting historical accident data. The data will then being analyzed using risk prediction models or before-after study that required an exact and reliable data. Meanwhile, the availability of accident data is rare where the rest actually consist of near-crashes and abnormal behaviour, which is mostly underreporting and lack of detail concerning the behavioural and situational of the event. Therefore, traffic conflict technique, is needed to assess traffic safety as another approach rather than waiting for several years until a number of accidents happen in a certain area. Hence the aim of this study is to make a safety evaluation towards a specific intersection in Hasselt Belgium using traffic conflict technique. The observation of conflict (near crashes) was carried out in intersection of Manteliusstraat – Dorpsstraat – Thonissenlaan in the Hasselt, Belgium. In order to differentiate slight conflict and serious conflict, the TA-value (Time of accident) was defined based on the estimated speed of the road user and estimated distance from the road user when conflict occurred. From the observation, it was found that the conflicts between car and pedestrian were the most frequent conflict, with 50% of the total conflict, and that the conflict between car with car and the conflict between car with cyclist were high in terms of severity level based on the TA-value. By taking these into consideration, it can be concluded that unsafe crossing for pedestrian and cyclist, different speed, and peak hour traffic were the causes of conflict. Therefore, it was concluded that traffic conflict technique can be used to assess and measure traffic safety in a certain road segment. Furthermore, in term of safety, the Manteliusstraat – Dorpsstraat – Thonissenlaan intersection should be modified with some alternatives; signalized intersection with toucan crossing and traffic control devices improvement

scholarly journals The Impact of Traffic Calming Measures on Cyclists’ and E-Cyclists’ Safety

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Ghazwan Al-Haji ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Traffic Accident ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Sustainable Transport ◽  
The Road ◽  
Traffic Calming ◽  
Accident Data ◽  
Safety Accident ◽  
The Impact

Cycling is a sustainable transport mode, especially in urban areas for short distances. Electric bikes and electric scooters are increasingly emerging into traffic network in cities in Sweden due to advantages related to accessibility, environment, etc. However, they bring questions in terms of traffic risk and accidents. The road infrastructure must be adapted to accommodate the increasing share of these new types of bikes in traffic. The study will assess both bikes and e-bikes safety according to exposure, risk and consequences. The study will review relevant literature on Traffic Calming Measures (TCMs). It will develop a conceptual framework to determine the impact of different TCMs (horizontal and vertical) on traffic safety for both traditional and e-bikes safety. Accident data from the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition (STRADA) will be collected and analysed in order to identify roundabouts (as a chosen type of TCMs) with high accidents rates for cyclists in Norrkoping city in Sweden.

scholarly journals Mitigation Of Black-Spot’s on Highways by The Application of Safe System Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 583-591
Author(s):  
Dinesh K Yadav ◽  
Sujesh D. Ghodmare ◽  
N. Naveen Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Black Spot ◽  
Severity Index ◽  
Traffic Volume ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Road ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Accident Data ◽  
Safety Parameters

With increase in traffic volume across the globe traffic safety has come into highlight and become a major concern. Apparently, with due increase in traffic volume resulting in higher road accidents which considerably causes negative impact on economic growth, public health and general welfare of wellbeing. In the present scenario challenges are faced to mitigate the traffic volume and by making road users aware with road safety parameters which may results in less road fatalities. The root cause of an accidents intends to perception, intellection emotion and violation. The approach towards this research is to get minimal setback/casualties of the road. In order to gain the best possible course of action, the stretch of 8 KM of National highway (NH-66) situated in a plain terrain in the district of Alapphuza, Kerala India. To begin with, accident data has been collected from NHAI office and Police station of above location with proper analysis by Accident Severity Index (ASI) method has been carried out. Adding to an idea, location of Black Spot has been identified by ASI method. Based on Severity of accident short term and long-term measures has been adopted. Eventually, after analyzing short term measures 10 black spot location along with the estimate has been worked out.

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