Evaluation Index and Methods of Highway Intersection Safety Maintenance

Conversation with <scp>R</scp>obert <scp>V</scp>oas

The quantity and damage degree caused by the traffic accidents on trunk highways always take the big part in the highway traffic accidents. Now, there are no more and complete evaluation methods for the trunk highway traffic safety. Whats more, the index system is not perfect. Based on the characters of traffic safety on trunk highways and feasible factors of information collection, this article confirms 3-level evaluation index system for 20 evaluation indexes and the evaluation methods for trunk highway traffic safety based on AHP. Taking Xiake Blvd of Jiangyin City as example, this article analyzes and proves the efficiency and feasibility of these methods. The evaluation results can provide the basis for the improvement of highway traffic safety.

In recent years, with the extending highway construction scale in mountain areas, there is lack of traffic safety facilities in some mountain areas. The problems of unreasonable and irregular traffic guarantee engineering construction stand out. Especially in rural highway in mountain areas with complex topography, the traffic accident rates are increasing, causing lots of dead and economic losses. Studying deeply on rural highway traffic safety problems in mountain areas and improving rural highway traffic safety level are the problems that we need to solve urgently. This essay analyzes the law of rural highway traffic accidents in mountain areas and makes a conclusion that the existing problems in rural highway safety managements in mountain areas at present. Based on this, this essay analyzes systematically the influent factors of rural highway traffic safety and a conclusion can be drew that the frequent rural highway traffic accidents in mountain areas not only are caused by bad line type for roads and no security arrangements are set. At last, based on macro-management level, it proposes a series of positive highway safety management countermeasures including strengthening traffic safety education, establishing traffic safety management system, improving passenger transport policy and management system, formulating dangerous sections inspection mechanisms.

지역단위 도로교통안전도에 대한 거시적 평가는 인구, 자동차대수, 도로연장 등의 거시적 노출변수(Macroscopic Exposure Measures)에 기반한 사고율을 노출지표로 이용하는 것이 일반적이나, 노출지표를 이용한 도로교통안전도 평가에 노출지표들이 미치는 영향이 각기 다르기 때문에 결과적으로 각각의 개별노출지표별 평가시 평가결과가 서로 상이하게 되는 문제가 있으며, 이는 예산투자의 효율적 집행을 위한 교통안전정책의 결정과정에 방해요인으로 작용하게 된다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 최소제곱법 및 가중치를 일정단위로 변화시키는 시뮬레이션을 이용하여 노출지표별 최적의 가중치를 도출하였으며, 이를 종합적으로 반영할 수 있는 도로교통안전도 비교평가지수 산정방법을 개발하였다. 지수를 구성하는 노출지표별 가중치는 인구당사고율이 0.29, 자동차등록대수당사고율이 0.52, 도로연장당 사고율이 0.19로 도출되었으며, 개발된 방법을 적용하여 전국 기초지자체별로 도로교통안전도 비교평가지수를 산정하였다. 본 연구에서 제시한 방법을 통해 노출지표별로 평가결과가 상이해지는 문제를 해결할 수 있으며, 교통안전예산의 투자효율성을 높이기 위한 교통안전정책의 합리적인 결정방법으로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 판단된다. Highway traffic safety evaluation of area on the basis of the accident rate has a limitation, thus its result is dependent on the exposure variables. It works an obstacle to decision making for effective budget execution. In this paper, we developed a methodology of taking simultaneously macroscopic exposure indicators into account in evaluating the safety using least squares method. The weight of exposure indicators to make up of highway traffic safety evaluation index is that accident rate per population, accident rate per registration vehicle and accident rate per length of road is 0.29, 0.52 and 0.19 respectively and calculated the highway traffic safety index of total local governments in Korea. The methodology to calculate highway traffic safety evaluation index proposed in this paper can be utilized in executing the traffic safety policies to increase the efficiency of investment about traffic safety budget.

Explainable highway performance degradation prediction model based on LSTM

The highway network is the largest and most visible community asset for which local authorities are responsible. It is used daily by the majority of people and is fundamental to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the community. It helps to shape the character and quality of the local areas that it serves and makes an important contribution to wider local authority priorities, including regeneration, social inclusion, community safety, education and health. In order to fulfil its potential it is crucial that the highway network is maintained. Increasing traffic growth has brought increasingly widespread recognition of the importance of highway maintenance and the high value placed on it by users. However, this importance has not generally been reflected in levels of investment, and public concern has been increasing about the implications of this for safety and journey reliability. Recent increases in investment have been welcome but a sustained long-term programme that is efficiently managed and supported by effective technical and management systems is required. The 2005 edition of Well-maintained Highways: Code of Practice for Highway Maintenance Management, together with the updated Well-lit Highways: Code of Practice for Highway Lighting Management and the new Management of Highway Structures: A Code of Practice, provide the basis for these technical and management systems with detailed guidance on standards and procedures. The codes, so far as possible, seek to harmonise approaches in all parts of the UK and between national and local roads, support the new requirements for asset management and link national and local transport policies. For the first time, the code of practice for well-maintained highways includes the management of public rights of way as part of the highway asset. This paper summarises the key features of the code, highlighting areas considered to be of particular importance. Copies of all codes can be viewed on the website of the UK Roads Liaison Group ( www.ukroadsliaisongroup.org ).

Highway geometry has a significant impact on road safety, particularly in the shoulder of horizontal curves where vehicle dynamics and driver behavior are changed, and the likelihood of an accident is significantly higher. Highway safety is greatly impacted by shoulder characteristics because of the difficulties these road segments present. Improving road safety requires well-planned and regularly inspected highway shoulders. The association between shoulder characteristics and road traffic accidents has been the subject of several studies on ways to reduce crash rates. In this study, we reviewed the various research works, studied by researchers and discussed about how shoulder characteristics affect highway safety in horizontal curves. This article presents an analysis on the effects of several shoulder types on highway safety in horizontal curves, including shoulder width, shoulder rumble strips, inside or outside shoulders, part-time shoulder use (PSTU), hard shoulder running (HSR), and emergency shoulder use (ESU). This article also summarizes the benefits and limitations of these shoulder characteristics on highway safety. The results of this study demonstrated that the number of overall accidents has significantly decreased due to the implementation of all these shoulder characteristics on highways. This comprehensive analysis will give future researchers a better understanding when they do preliminary evaluations in the specific field.

As traffic safety needs and problems differ across populations, so are the strategies required to address them.Efforts to improve traffic safety in the Black community have been handicapped, however, by a lack of information on communication strategies that would be helpful in determining and shaping effective interventions.The purpose of this study was to identify traffic safety needs of Black communities within the United States and to determine effective means of directing traffic safety messages to these populations.Based on the research, specific guidelines for conducting interventions targeted to the Black community were produced.Information was collected from officials and representatives from local agencies and organizations through one-on-one discussions and with focus groups with members of the general public in six targeted locations across the United States.The six study sites were Berkeley County, SC; Cook County, IL; Jackson County, MO; Middlesex County, NJ; Oktibbeha County, MS and Prince George's County, MD.Representatives from agencies and organizations identified the improper or nonuse of child safety seats as a major problem.Focus group participants ranked drinking and driving as the top or one of the top three problems.Aggressive /reckless driving and speeding were also given high priority by focus groups participants.When promoting traffic safety programs to Black populations, research participants recommended positive, realistic messages that portray truthful, ordinary Black people in believable situations.Families were identified as the most positive influences.Churches and schools were recognized as the most trusted and effective venues for reaching the Black community with traffic safety messages.17.

The responsiveness of motor vehicle death rates of youths aged fifteen through twenty-four to variations in the cost of beers as reflected by differences in State excise tax rates on beer is investigated. Evidence for this age group is provided on the extent to which declining real beer excise taxes have contributed to increases in fatal motor vehicle crashes and on the extent to which increases in real beer taxes can serve as a potent instrument in the antidrinking campaign. The effect of an increase in the legal drinking age on youth motor vehicle deaths is also examined.

China had experienced an enormous increase of traffic crashes as a result of the country's rapid growth of vehicle and highway mileage, now although traffic accidents have been greatly declined due to the promulgation and implementation of road traffic regulations, the mortality of traffic accidents is still high, so it is necessary to study the road traffic safety. Many studies have explored, to date, the issue of the traffic safety evaluation of road. But few analyse the cause of traffic safety related to inherent safety theory use in urban. The paper seeks to build an evaluation model of private cars, coaches and trucks from the perspectives of inherent safety. The evaluation index of traditional model traffic system has been built from the perspectives of human, vehicle, road and environment, this paper is based on the theory of inherent safety, the environment of different traffic carrier in which is different, and the drivers of different traffic carrier is also different, Therefore, by dividing the traffic carrier and using the theory of inherent safety to calculate the inherent safety impact factors of private cars, coaches and trucks respectively. Two methods are used for safety evaluation. The first method is based on the evaluation index and model established from the perspective of inherent safety. The second method is calculated by the traditional fuzzy matrix method. Finally, a comparative analysis of the two methods is carried out. It is possible to reduce the three types of road traffic accidents using the method, and in hopes of achieving an even safer traffic society in China.

Building the dual prevention mechanism is a new way to solve traffic safety problems. At present, in the field of highways, the dual prevention mechanism of operational safety risk graded control and accident hazard investigation and management has not been perfected. The deep-seated contradictions and problems that restrict highway operation safety have not changed. Based on the dual prevention model of highway operation safety, this paper studied and established basic databases such as "safety risk and accident hazard map", "safety risk and accident hazard database", and "responsibility list" for highway operation safety. Using modern information technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data, a dual prevention intelligent control system for highway operation safety was developed. The system includes eight modules such as highway operation safety risk control, accident hazard investigation and management, emergency management, and safety education, which realizes the accurate identification, intelligent classification, real-time analysis, and dynamic control of highway operation safety risks and hazards. The results of the application of nearly 1,000 kilometers of highway projects in Guangdong Province, Hebei Province, etc. show that the system has improved the safety of highway operations and the efficiency of hazard detection. A large amount of labor, transportation and other highway safety management costs can be saved every year. This system effectively promoted the systematization, standardization and refinement of highway operation safety management.

In order to evaluate the driving risk of the highway construction and maintenance work zone, identify the dangerous sections and improve the level of road traffic safety, considering the traffic conditions, speed and deceleration were used to evaluate the driving risk by cloud transformation and cloud reasoning technology. Based on the traffic flow theory, the traffic volume, speed and deceleration were chosen as the three evaluation indexes, and determine the certainty degree of evaluation index in the concept of cloud model, and the rule base of driving risk evaluation in highway was established and the risk could be evaluated by this method. The research results quantify the impact of traffic volume, speed and acceleration on the driving risk at the highway construction and maintenance work zone, which provides a good reference value for the future road safety design.

In order to rationally determine each index weight and effectively deal with fiazziness and randomness existing in evaluation process, projection pursuit grade evaluation model based on maximum information entropy principle, named PPE for short, is proposed as a new evaluation approach. Optimal projection direction of PPE using accelerating genetic algorithm reflects the objective weights of evaluation indexes, hereby the rationality of original evaluation criterion can be verified and the major indexes of influencing river health can be identified. The results of PPE applied to evaluating a river health in the South of China show that the calculated membership degree value of the river health fuzzy set is 0.6115, so the river belongs to the grade of ldquohealthrdquo and approaches the grade of ldquoinferior healthrdquo; there is only objective weight relatively small value of the index ldquoriver blanking probabilityrdquo in the 25 evaluation indexes, and the objective weight value of other indexes approaches 0.04; the major indexes of influencing the river health are ldquothe collecting rate of the fee of water resourcerdquo, ldquoself-purification rate of water bodyrdquo, ldquothe index of regulating abilityrdquo, ldquochange rate of sediment transport capacityrdquo, ldquoGDP of per cubic meter waterrdquo, ldquochange rate of fish kindrdquo, ldquoperfect rate of nonstructural measures of flood controlrdquo and ldquosewage handling raterdquo, respectively; it is the important working content of the water security management of this river at present to improve the river health degrees of these indexes.

Although a wide range of literature has investigated the network-level highway maintenance plans and policies, few of them focused on the maintenance scheduling problem. This study proposes a methodology framework to model and compare two different maintenance scheduling strategies for highway networks, i.e., minimal makespan strategy (MMS) and minimal increased travel delay strategy (MITDS). We formulate MMS as a mixed integer linear programming model subject to the constraints of the quantity of manpower and the worst-first maintenance sequence. A bi-level programming model is proposed to quantify and optimize MITDS. The upper level model determines the optimal scheduling to minimize the increased traffic delays during the maintenance makespan. In the lower level, a modified day-to-day traffic assignment model is put forward to reflect the traffic evolution dynamics by simulating travelers’ route choice behaviors. A simulated annealing algorithm and augmented Lagrange algorithm are employed to solve the two proposed models, respectively. Finally, a numerical example using a highway network is developed. The two proposed strategies are tested considering different traffic demands, numbers of engineering teams, and travelers’ sensitivities to traffic congestion. The experiment results reveal that compared with MMS, MITDS extends makespan by 2 days though, it reduces the total increased travel delays by 4% and both MMS and MITDS can obtain the minimum total increased travel delays when the number of engineering teams is 6. The sensitivity analysis indicates that both the two strategies have the maximum and minimum total increased travel delays when the weight of prediction in travelers’ perception is 0.3 and 0.7, respectively. The proposed framework has the potential to provide reference in implementing highway maintenance activities reasonably.

Cairo, with a population of some 9 million people, has an annual rate of growth of 3% and a car ownership level of 22 vehicles per 1,000 people. The annual increase in gdp is 6% and there is a 15% increase in traffic per annum. Traffic congestion is increasing particularly in the CBD and parking and road safety problems are also increasing. Long and short term plans have been produced to accomodate the future travel demands and these include construction of an underground metro system, the building of new satellite cities and the improvement of all forms of public transport and also of pedestrian facilities. Highways and traffic management schemes are also being implemented. These include new arterial routes, junction flyovers, highway maintenance and transport management. A plan for highway improvements and traffic management over the next five years is described in this paper which requires an investment in highways of approximately 30 million per annum. The highway strategy concentrates on making the most efficient use of existing highway facilities, eliminating major bottlenecks and improving the maintenance and paving of the distributor road system. Improvements to traffic management are a fundamental part of the short term plan and include a new circulatory system for the CBD, police training and equipment, accident recording and enforcement measures. (TRRL)