Rural expressway intersection characteristics that contribute to a reduced safety performance

Expressways have been constructed in many states as a way to increase mobility without the expense of a full access-controlled or grade-separated facility. In most cases, it was assumed that these segments of highway would produce similar mobility and safety characteristics as other access-controlled facilities. However, recent research has found that there are problems with the safety performance of these systems. Although past research has been completed to examine the nature of crashes on these facilities, it is the purpose of this study to continue the research and analyze the common characteristics of the intersections. The intersections studied in this research were located throughout the state of Iowa. The objective of these analyses is to provide an identification of the major contributing factors that create problematic intersections in the state of Iowa. From previous research, it is evident that factors in addition to roadway volume contribute to the safety performance of an at-grade, two-way, stop-controlled expressway intersection. This research identifies common characteristics that may increase or decrease the safety performance of a rural expressway intersection. The methodology used in this research includes the examination of 644 intersections throughout the state of Iowa. Through the use of a statewide database and crash information from 1996 to 2000, we were able to identify the 100 best- and 100 worst-performing intersections based on crash severity rate. With the 200 intersections, a statistical analysis was completed to determine the effects intersection design and surrounding land use have on the intersection\u27s safety performance. The safety performance of intersections located on vertical/horizontal curves, skewed intersections, and varying surrounding land use were studied to determine their effects on rural expressway intersections. Following the completion of the analysis of the 200 intersections, 30 intersections with highest crash severity index rates were selected for more thorough, site-specific analysis. As part of this analysis, we examined the impact of land use adjacent to the intersection and the impact of peaking in hourly traffic volumes. The research identifies attributes that impact crash severity both negatively and positively. Through the identification of these attributes, designers and planners can more adequately address safety concerns on rural expressway intersections

Dynamic Hotspot Identification for Limited Access Facilities using Temporal Traffic Data

Crash frequency analysis is the most critical tool to investigate traffic safety problems. Therefore, an accurate crash analysis must be conducted. Since traffic continually fluctuates over time and this effects potential of crash occurrence, shorter time periods and less aggregated traffic factors (shorter intervals than AADT) need to be used. In this dissertation, several methodologies have been conducted to elevate the accuracy of crash prediction. The performance of using less aggregated traffic data in modeling crash frequency was explored for weekdays and weekends. Four-time periods for weekdays and two time periods for weekends, with four intervals (5, 15, 30, and 60 minutes). The comparison between AADT based models and short-term period models showed that short-term period models perform better. As a shorter traffic interval than AADT considered, two difficulties began. Firstly, the number of zero observations increased. Secondly, the repetition of the same roadway characteristics arose. To reduce the number of zero observations, only segments with one or more crashes were used in the modeling process. To eliminate the effect of the repetition in the data, random effect was applied. The results recommend adopting segments with only one or more crashes, as they give a more valid prediction and less error. Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) and hurdle negative binomial (HNB) models were examined in addition to the negative binomial for both weekdays and weekends. Different implementations of random effects were applied. Using the random effect either on the count part, on the zero part, or a pair of uncorrelated (or correlated) random effects for both parts of the model. Additionally, the adaptive Gaussian Quadrature, with five quadrature points, was used to increase accuracy. The results reveal that the model which considered the random effect in both parts performed better than other models, and ZINB performed better than HNB

Safety Assessment Tool for Construction Zone Work Phasing Plans

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) is the compilation of national safety research that provides quantitative methods for analyzing highway safety. The HSM presents crash modification functions related to freeway work zone characteristics such as work zone duration and length. These crash modification functions were based on freeway work zones with high traffic volumes in California. When the HSM-referenced model was calibrated for Missouri, the value was 3.78, which is not ideal since it is significantly larger than 1. Therefore, new models were developed in this study using Missouri data to capture geographical, driver behavior, and other factors in the Midwest. Also, new models for expressway and rural two-lane work zones that barely were studied in the literature were developed. A large sample of 20,837 freeway, 8,993 expressway, and 64,476 rural two-lane work zones in Missouri was analyzed to derive 15 work zone crash prediction models. The most appropriate samples of 1,546 freeway, 1,189 expressway, and 6,095 rural two-lane work zones longer than 0.1 mile and with a duration of greater than 10 days were used to make eight, four, and three models, respectively. A challenging question for practitioners is always how to use crash prediction models to make the best estimation of work zone crash count. To solve this problem, a user-friendly software tool was developed in a spreadsheet format to predict work zone crashes based on work zone characteristics. This software selects the best model, estimates the work zone crashes by severity, and converts them to monetary values using standard crash estimates. This study also included a survey of departments of transportation (DOTs), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) representatives, and contractors to assess the current state of the practice regarding work zone safety. The survey results indicate that many agencies look at work zone safety informally using engineering judgment. Respondents indicated that they would like a tool that could help them to balance work zone safety across projects by looking at crashes and user costs

Vehicle-group-based Crash Risk Formation and Propagation Analysis for Expressways

Previous studies in predicting crash risk primarily associated the number or likelihood of crashes on a road segment with traffic parameters or geometric characteristics of the segment, usually neglecting the impact of vehicles' continuous movement and interactions with nearby vehicles. Advancements in communication technologies have empowered driving information collected from surrounding vehicles, enabling the study of group-based crash risks. Based on high-resolution vehicle trajectory data, this research focused on vehicle groups as the subject of analysis and explored risk formation and propagation mechanisms considering features of vehicle groups and road segments. Several key factors contributing to crash risks were identified, including past high-risk vehicle-group states, complex vehicle behaviors, high percentage of large vehicles, frequent lane changes within a vehicle group, and specific road geometries. A multinomial logistic regression model was developed to analyze the spatial risk propagation patterns, which were classified based on the trend of high-risk occurrences within vehicle groups. The results indicated that extended periods of high-risk states, increase in vehicle-group size, and frequent lane changes are associated with adverse risk propagation patterns. Conversely, smoother traffic flow and high initial crash risk values are linked to risk dissipation. Furthermore, the study conducted sensitivity analysis on different types of classifiers, prediction time intervalsss and adaptive TTC thresholds. The highest AUC value for vehicle-group risk prediction surpassed 0.93. The findings provide valuable insights to researchers and practitioners in understanding and prediction of vehicle-group safety, ultimately improving active traffic safety management and operations of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Real-time crash prediction models: State-of-the-art, design pathways and ubiquitous requirements

Proactive traffic safety management systems can monitor traffic conditions in real-time, identify the formation of unsafe traffic dynamics, and implement suitable interventions to bring unsafe conditions back to normal traffic situations. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, sensor fusion and algorithms have brought about the introduction of a proactive safety management system closer to reality. The basic prerequisite for developing such a system is to have a reliable crash prediction model that takes real-time traffic data as input and evaluates their association with crash risk. Since the early 21st century, several studies have focused on developing such models. Although the idea has considerably matured over time, the endeavours have been quite discrete and fragmented at best because the fundamental aspects of the overall modelling approach substantially vary. Therefore, a number of transitional challenges have to be identified and subsequently addressed before a ubiquitous proactive safety management system can be formulated, designed and implemented in real-world scenarios. This manuscript conducts a comprehensive review of existing real-time crash prediction models with the aim of illustrating the state-of-the-art and systematically synthesizing the thoughts presented in existing studies in order to facilitate its translation from an idea into a ready to use technology. Towards that journey, it conducts a systematic review by applying various text mining methods and topic modelling. Based on the findings, this paper ascertains the development pathways followed in various studies, formulates the ubiquitous design requirements of such models from existing studies and knowledge of similar systems. Finally, this study evaluates the universality and design compatibility of existing models. This paper is, therefore, expected to serve as a one stop knowledge source for facilitating a faster transition from the idea of real-time crash prediction models to a real-world operational proactive traffic safety management system

Utilizing Import Vector Machines to Identify Dangerous Pro-active Traffic Conditions

Traffic accidents have been a severe issue in metropolises with the development of traffic flow. This paper explores the theory and application of a recently developed machine learning technique, namely Import Vector Machines (IVMs), in real-time crash risk analysis, which is a hot topic to reduce traffic accidents. Historical crash data and corresponding traffic data from Shanghai Urban Expressway System were employed and matched. Traffic conditions are labelled as dangerous (i.e. probably leading to a crash) and safe (i.e. a normal traffic condition) based on 5-minute measurements of average speed, volume and occupancy. The IVM algorithm is trained to build the classifier and its performance is compared to the popular and successfully applied technique of Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The main findings indicate that IVMs could successfully be employed in real-time identification of dangerous pro-active traffic conditions. Furthermore, similar to the "support points" of the SVM, the IVM model uses only a fraction of the training data to index kernel basis functions, typically a much smaller fraction than the SVM, and its classification rates are similar to those of SVMs. This gives the IVM a computational advantage over the SVM, especially when the size of the training data set is large.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2020 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC

Interpretable Machine Learning을 활용한 구간단속시스템 설치에 따른 인명피해사고 감소 효과 연구

학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 건설환경공학부, 2020. 8. 김동규.In this study, a prediction model for casualty crash occurrence was developed considering whether to install SSES and the effect of SSES installation was quantified by dividing it into direct and indirect effects through the analysis of mediation effect. Also, it was recommended what needs to be considered in selecting the candidate sites for SSES installation. For this, crash prediction model was developed by using the machine learning for binary classification based on whether or not casualty crash occurred and the effects of SSES installation were analyzed based on crashes and speed-related variables. Especially, the IML methodology was applied that considered the predictive performance as well as the interpretability of the forecast results as important. When developing the IML which consisted of black-box and interpretable model, KNN, RF, and SVM were reviewed as black-box model, and DT and BLR were reviewed as interpretable model. In the model development, the hyper-parameters that could be set in each methodology were optimized through k-fold cross validation. The SVM with a polynomial kernel trick was selected as black-box model and the BLR was selected as interpretable model to predict the probability of casualty crash occurrence. For the developed IML model, the evaluation was conducted through comparison with the typical BLR from the perspective of the PDR framework. The evaluation confirmed that the results of the IML were more excellent than the typical BLR in terms of predictive accuracy, descriptive accuracy, and relevancy from a human in the loop. Using the result of IML's model development, the effect on SSES installation were quantified based on the probability equation of casualty crash occurrence. The equation is the logistic function that consists of SSES, SOR, SV, TVL, HVR, and CR. The result of analysis confirmed that the SSES installation reduced the probability of casualty crash occurrence by about 28%. In addition, the analysis of mediation effects on the variables affected by installing SSES was conducted to quantify the direct and indirect effects on the probability of reducing the casualty crashes caused by the SSES installation. The proportion of indirect effects through reducing the ratio of exceeding the speed limit (SOR) was about 30% and the proportion of indirect effects through reduction of speed variance (SV) was not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Finally, the probability equation of casualty crash occurrence developed in this study was applied to the sections of Yeongdong Expressway to compare the crash risk section with the actual crash data to examine the applicability of the development model. The analysis result verified that the equation was reasonable. Therefore, it may be considered to select dangerous sites based on casualty crash and speeding firstly, and then to install SSES at the section where traffic volume (TVL), heavy vehicle ratio (HVR), and curve ratio (CR) are higher than the other sections.본 연구에서는 구간단속시스템(Section Speed Enforcement System, SSES) 설치 효과를 정량화하기 위해 인명피해사고 예측모형을 개발하고, 매개효과 분석을 통해 SSES 설치에 대한 직접효과와 간접효과를 구분하여 정량화하였다. 또한, 개발한 예측모형에 대한 고속도로에서의 적용 가능성을 검토하고, SSES 설치 대상지 선정 시 고려해야할 사항을 제안하였다. 모형 개발에는 인명피해사고 발생 여부를 종속변수로 하는 이진분류형 기계학습을 활용하였으며, 기계학습 중에서는 모형의 예측 성능과 더불어 예측 결과에 대한 해석력을 중요하게 고려하는 인터프리터블 머신 러닝(Interpretable Machine Learning, IML) 방법론을 적용하였다. IML은 블랙박스 모델과 인터프리터블 모델로 구성되며, 본 연구에서는 블랙박스 모델로 KNN, RF 및 SVM을, 인터프리터블 모델로 DT와 BLR을 검토하였다. 모형 개발 시에는 각 기법에서 튜닝이 가능한 하이퍼 파라미터에 대하여 교차검증 과정을 거쳐 최적화하였다. 블랙박스 모델은 폴리노미얼 커널 트릭을 활용한 SVM을, 인터프리터블 모델은 BLR을 적용하여 인명피해사고 발생 확률을 예측하는 모형을 개발하였다. 개발된 IML 모델에 대해서는 PDR(Predictive accuracy, Descriptive accuracy and Relevancy) 프레임워크 관점에서 (typical) BLR 모델과 비교 평가를 진행하였다. 평가 결과 예측 정확도, 해석 정확도 및 인간의 이해관점에서의 적합성 등에서 모두 IML 모델이 우수함을 확인하였다. 또한, 본 연구에서 개발된 IML 모델 기반의 인명피해사고 발생 확률식은 SSES, SOR, SV, TVL, HVR 및 CR의 독립변수로 구성되었으며, 이 확률식을 기반으로 SSES 설치에 대한 효과를 정량화하였다. 정량화 분석 결과, SSES 설치로 인해 약 28% 정도의 인명피해사고 발생 확률이 감소함을 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, 모형 개발에 활용된 변수 중 SSES 설치로 인해 영향을 받는 변수들(SOR 및 SV)에 대한 매개효과 분석을 통해 SSES 설치로 인한 인명피해사고 감소 확률을 직접효과와 간접효과를 구분하여 제시하였다. 분석 결과, SSES와 제한속도 초과비율(SOR)의 관계에서 있어서는 약 30%가 간접효과이고, SSES와 속도분산(SV)의 관계에 있어서는 매개효과가 통계적으로 유의하지 않음을 확인할 수 있었다. 마지막으로 영동고속도로를 대상으로 인명피해사고 발생 확률식 기반의 예측 위험구간과 실제 인명사고 다발 구간에 대한 비교 분석을 통해 연구 결과의 활용 가능성을 확인하였다. 또한, SSES 설치 대상지 선정 시에는 사고 및 속도 분석을 통한 위험구간을 선별한 후 교통량(TVL)이 많은 곳, 통과차량 중 중차량 비율(HVR)이 높은 곳 및 구간 내 곡선비율(CR)이 높은 곳을 우선적으로 검토하는 것을 제안하였다.1. Introduction 1 1.1. Background of research 1 1.2. Objective of research 4 1.3. Research Flow 6 2. Literature Review 11 2.1. Research related to SSES 11 2.1.1. Effectiveness of SSES 11 2.1.2. Installation criteria of SSES 15 2.2. Machine learning about transportation 17 2.2.1. Machine learning algorithm 17 2.2.2. Machine learning algorithm about transportation 19 2.3. Crash prediction model 23 2.3.1. Frequency of crashes 23 2.3.2. Severity of crash 26 2.4. Interpretable Machine Learning (IML) 31 2.4.1. Introduction 31 2.4.2. Application of IML 33 3. Model Specification 37 3.1. Analysis of SSES effectiveness 37 3.1.1. Crashes analysis 37 3.1.2. Speed analysis 39 3.2. Data collection & pre-analysis 40 3.2.1. Data collection 40 3.2.2. Basic statistics of variables 42 3.3. Response variable selection 50 3.4. Model selection 52 3.4.1. Binary classification 52 3.4.2. Accuracy vs. Interpretability 53 3.4.3. Overview of IML 54 3.4.4. Process of model specification 57 4. Model development 59 4.1. Black-box and interpretable model 59 4.1.1. Consists of IML 59 4.1.2. Black-box model 60 4.1.3. Interpretable model 68 4.2. Model development 72 4.2.1. Procedure 72 4.2.2. Measures of effectiveness 74 4.2.3. K-fold cross validation 76 4.3. Result of model development 78 4.3.1. Result of black-box model 78 4.3.2. Result of interpretable model 85 5. Evaluation & Application 91 5.1. Evaluation 91 5.1.1. The PDR framework for IML 91 5.1.2. Predictive accuracy 93 5.1.3. Descriptive accuracy 94 5.1.4. Relevancy 99 5.2. Impact of Casualty Crash Reduction 102 5.2.1. Quantification of the effectiveness 102 5.2.2. Mediation effect analysis 106 5.3. Application for the Korean expressway 118 6. Conclusion 121 6.1. Summary and Findings 121 6.2. Further Research 125Docto

Safety Evaluation of Car-Truck Mixed Traffic Flow on Freeways Using Surrogate Safety Measures

This study analyzes car-following and lane-change conflicts in car-heavy vehicle mixed traffic flow on freeways using three surrogate safety measures - time-to-collision (TTC), post-encroachment-time (PET) and crash potential index (CPI). The surrogate safety measures were estimated for different types of lead and following vehicles (car or heavy vehicle) using the individual vehicle trajectory data. The data were collected from a segment of the US-101 freeway in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. For car-following conflicts, the distributions of TTC and PET were significantly different among different types of lead and following vehicles. For lane-change conflicts between the lane-change vehicle and the trailing vehicle in the target lane, CPIs were higher for angle conflicts than rear-end conflicts. It was also found that the CPI was generally higher for a given spacing interval when the following vehicle is a heavy vehicle in both car-following and lane-change conflicts. This indicates that heavy vehicle’s lower braking capability significantly increases collision risk. This study also validates the CPI using historical crash data and the loop detector data extracted a few minutes before crash time upstream and downstream of crash locations. The data were obtained from a section of the Gardiner Expressway, Ontario, Canada. The result shows that the values of CPI were consistently higher for the crash case than the non-crash case. This shows that CPI can be used to capture the collision risk during car-following and lane-change maneuver on freeways. The findings suggest that the differences in collision risk among different vehicle pair types should be considered in the assessment of safety of car-heavy vehicle mixed traffic flow

Statistical and simulation methods for evaluating stationary and mobile work zone impacts

In 2014, nearly 10% of overall congestion on freeways was due to the presence of work zones (WZs), equivalent to 310 million gallons of fuel loss (FHWA, 2017a). In terms of safety, in the US, every 5.4 minutes, a WZ related crash occurred in 2015 (96,626 crashes annually) (FHWA, 2017b). Maintenance work involves both Stationary Work Zones (SWZs) and Mobile Work Zones (MWZs). There are many analytical and simulation-based tools available for analyzing the traffic impacts of SWZs. However, the existing traffic analysis tools are not designed to appropriately model MWZs traffic impacts. This study seeks to address this gap in existing knowledge through the use of data from MWZs to develop and calibrate traffic impact analysis tools. This objective is accomplished through data fusion from multiple sources of MWZ, probe vehicle and traffic detector data. The simulation tool VISSIM is calibrated for MWZs using information extracted from videos of MWZ operations. This is the first study that calibrated the simulation based on real driving behavior behind a MWZ. The three recommended calibration parameters are safety reduction factor of 0.7, minimum look ahead distance of 500 feet and the use of smooth closeup option. These calibration values can be used to compare MWZ scenarios. Also, the data collection framework and calibration methodology designed in this study could be used in future research. The operational analysis concluded that a moving work activity lasting one hour or more are suggested to be done when traffic volumes are under 1400 veh/hr/ln, and preferably under 1000 veh/hr/ln, due to the drastic increase in the number of conflicts. In addition, three data driven models were developed to predict traffic speed inside a MWZ: a linear regression model and two models that used Multi-Gene Genetic Programming (MGGP). The second objective is to develop models and tools for safety assessment of stationary work zones. In the WZ safety literature, few studies have quantified the safety impact of SWZ and almost no quantitative study assessing MWZ safety impact. Using Missouri data, this study introduces 20 new crash prediction models for SWZs on freeways, expressways, rural two lane highways, urban multi-lane highways, arterials, ramps, signalized intersections, and unsignalized intersections. All the models except freeway SWZs are proposed for the first time in the literature. The mentioned SWZ models are implemented in a user-friendly spreadsheet tool which automatically selects the most appropriate model based on user input. The tool predicts crashes by severity, and computes the crash costs. For MWZs, there is no crash data available to develop crash prediction models. Thus, this dissertation analyzed conflict measures as a surrogate for safety impacts of MWZs. Conflict measures were generated from the trajectories of traffic simulation model. The safety trade-off plots between conflicts and combination of MWZ's duration and traffic volume were introduced. A transportation agency can use these plots to determine, for example, if they should conduct a MWZ for a short duration when the volume is high or for a longer duration when the volume is lower.Includes bibliographical reference