2013 Session: 571

• Risk Factors Associated with Crash Severity on Low-Volume Rural Roads in Denmark
  Abstract: The current study analyzes the risk factors associated with crash severity on low-volume rural roads, including crash characteristics, driver attributes and behavior, vehicle type, road features, environmental conditions and zone attributes. The data consist of a comprehensive set of crashes occurred on low-volume rural roads in Denmark between 2007 and 2011. The modeling approach entails a generalized ordered logit model due to its advantage in accommodating the ordered-response nature of severity while relaxing the proportional odds assumption. Crash involvement rates show that 20% of the drivers involved are intoxicated and 40% fail to use seatbelts. Moreover, about 25% of the crashes involve vulnerable road users, while 18% involve heavy vehicles. Model estimates and pseudo-elasticities show that aggravated crash severity is significantly and positively associated with (i) alcohol and failure to wear seatbelts, (ii) involvement of vulnerable road users, (iii) involvement of heavy vehicles, (iv) speed limits of 80-90 km/h, (v) longer distance to the nearest hospital, and (vi) socio-economically vulnerable rural regions.
  Authors: Prato, Carlo Giacomo; Rasmussen, Thomas Kjær; Kaplan, Sigal
  Authors: Prato, Carlo Giacomo; Rasmussen, Thomas Kjær; Kaplan, Sigal
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-1236
• Evaluation of Large-Truck Crashes at Horizontal Curves on Two-Lane Rural Highways in Kansas
  Abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the roadway, environment, and resulting crash severity of truck crashes at horizontal curves located on rural two-lane state highways in Kansas. Single vehicle truck crashes and multi-vehicle crashes involving at least one truck crashes were extracted from the Kansas Department of Transportation’s crash and roadway databases for 2006 to 2010 which resulted in 452 crash records. Descriptive statistics and 95 percent confidence intervals were constructed for an odds ratio analysis comparing single-vehicle truck crashes to multi-vehicle crashes involving at least one truck for variables that were included in both databases.Overall, the odds ratio analysis indicated that single vehicle truck crashes were less likely to occur on wet pavement, with the shoulder rumble strips present, occurring during non-adverse weather conditions as compared to multi-vehicle crashes involving at least one truck. Single-vehicle truck crashes were also more likely to result in an injury crash as compared to multi-vehicle crashes involving at least one truck which were more likely to result in a fatality or property damage only crash.
  Authors: Fitzsimmons, Eric J.; Lindheimer, Tomas Ernesto; Schrock, Steven D.; Gonterwitz, Kyle
  Authors: Fitzsimmons, Eric J.; Lindheimer, Tomas Ernesto; Schrock, Steven D.; Gonterwitz, Kyle
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-2340
• Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Automatic Traffic Incident Detection System for Low-Volume Roads
  Abstract: This paper presents an automatic traffic incident detection system for low volume roads based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Using computer vision techniques, the traffic flow parameters and vehicle trajectories were extracted from the real-time video. Then, various traffic incidents can be detected automatically by using the proposed algorithms, which can detect collisions that happened already or dangerous events that would result in collisions. A unique feature of the system is the Geographic Information System (GIS) based property while with Google Earth embedded, which enables the users to see real time large scale terrain image around the existing UAV location. This system supports video retrieving according to traffic semantics, such as stalling vehicles and vehicle running in wrong direction, which enables users to confirm incidents according to traffic video. To evaluate the performance of proposed system, two field experiments have been done. One was conducted in Gainesville, Florida U.S. in May, 2011. Another was carried out in Feb, 2012, China. In the first experiment, the video with 24567 frames contains 2 slow moving incidents, 3 wrong direction incidents, and 55 vehicle stalling incidents. The slow moving, wrong direction incidents detection rate is 100% and the vehicle stalling incident detection rate is 96.36%. For the second experiment, three test cars were driven to simulate incidents, all the vehicles including static ones were detected successfully when the UAV cruised along the highway.
  Authors: Zhang, Li-Ye
  Authors: Zhang, Li-Ye
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-4724
• Risk Factors Associated with Crash Severity on Low-Volume Rural Roads in Denmark
  Authors: Prato, Carlo
  Authors: Prato, Carlo
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-1236
• Evaluation of Large-Truck Crashes at Horizontal Curves on Two-Lane Rural Highways in Kansas
  Authors: Fitzsimmons, Eric
  Authors: Fitzsimmons, Eric
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-2340
• Safety Data Analysis: Case Study of State Highway "Tirrena Inferiore"
  Authors: Busiello, Mariarosaria
  Authors: Busiello, Mariarosaria
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-1946
• Safety Data Analysis: Case Study of State Highway "Tirrena Inferiore"
  Authors: Russo, Francesca
  Authors: Russo, Francesca
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-1946
• Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Automatic Traffic Incident Detection System for Low-Volume Roads
  Authors: Zhang, Li-Ye
  Authors: Zhang, Li-Ye
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-4724
• Safety Data Analysis: Case Study of State Highway “Tirrena Inferiore”
  Abstract:

  The road safety has become a priority field worldwide and one of the major factors describing the transport system’s state with its positive and negative changes. Many studies on driver speed behaviour are found in the scientific literature, and researchers have addressed roadway alignment consistency for travel safety in context with real operating speeds. This paper illustrates an experimental analysis conducted on the State Highway “Tirrenia Inferiore” in Southern Italy without spiral transition curves between geometric tangent and circular elements on the horizontal alignment, to check a new prediction consistency model. Two consistency measures were developed and compared with the results available in scientific literature: the first was the relative area bounded by the speed profile and the average weighted speed; the second was the standard deviation of operating speeds in each design element along the entire road investigated. Combining these two previous measures and following an extensive sensitivity analysis, a consistency model was developed and thresholds for good, acceptable and poor road consistency can be proposed. The consistency prediction model was related to numbers of crashes occurred from 2003 to 2010. It was found that as design consistency increased, number of crashes decrease significantly. Consistency model can be use for this purpose during the geometric design process or during the evaluation process for two-lane rural highways.

  Authors: Dell'Acqua, Gianluca; Busiello, Mariarosaria; Russo, Francesca; Lamberti, Renato; Coraggio, Giovanni
  Authors: Dell'Acqua, Gianluca; Busiello, Mariarosaria; Russo, Francesca; Lamberti, Renato; Coraggio, Giovanni
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Design; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 571
  Paper Number: 13-1946
  Practice-Ready: Yes