An evaluation of highway crash-prone areas: A case study on Pan Borneo Highway in the state of Sarawak

Road traffic crashes is one of the major causes of death that needs to be addressed globally. Many studies have been conducted to identify the contributing factors to traffic crashes and to determine the required preventive measures. This study evaluates the causes of 164 traffic crashes along a 10 kilometres section of Pan Borneo Highway Sarawak. The study investigated the main causes of traffic crashes within this section of road through multiple sources: based on expert on site evaluation, analysis of site incident report and police accident record. The finding reveals that most of the accidents (93%) occurs during the daytime, weather contributes a combined 69% and private car owners (80%) cause most of the traffic crashes. The study also indicates that the road condition is a significant factor to the occurrence of traffic crashes in that area contributing 64% of the total crashes

Metacognition : What Roles Does It Play in Students’ Academic Performance?

This paper discusses metacognition, defined as thinking about one’s own thinking, and its relation ship to student’s academic performance. A number of previous studies have shown that metacognition and intelligence were associated, and there fore suggested that students who have metacognition end to be successful learners. This paper also reports on a study investigating the relationship between students’ academic achievement and metacognitive awareness, which has been done at a private secondary school in Kuching. An established instrument by Schraw and Dennison’s Metacognitive Awareness Inventory is used for the purpose of this study

Sensitivity analysis of stormpav composite pavement

This study investigates the design and performance of modified composite pavement called StormPav. In this study, the sensitivity analysis is carried out by using available freeware to prove whether the StormPav composite pavement is able to provide long-life pavement and better levels of performance, both structural and functionally, than the traditional pavements. For this case, the sensitivity analysis is included data for fatigue behavior, rutting in the HMA (Hot Mix Asphalt) layer, and temperature gradient reduction of PCC slab with an HMA overlay. The StormPav composite pavement is actually an innovation IBS green pavement with structural, environmental and economic advantages. Inspired from Legos concept, the StormPav is made out of modular panels or "roadblocks" that are like enormous lego pieces that assemble and interlocking together forming a uniform settlement and at the same time acting as the monolithic character. The idea of StormPav is actually to minimize the usage of material in the composite pavement but provide the same strength and benefits as composite pavement

Modelling major traffic incident impacts and estimation of their associated costs

Network area-wide impacts due to major traffic incidents can be assessed using a microsimulation approach. A VISSIM microsimulation model for a motorway network has been developed and is used to quantify impacts of a major incident in terms of associated costs. The modelled results reveal that a 65% capacity reduction results in 36% more incident-induced delay when compared with the application of a 50% capacity reduction assumption for a two-hour incident clearance duration that blocked one lane of a two-lane motorway. Additionally, an incident which caused a full blockage incurred 40 times more associated impact costs when compared with a major incident which caused a one lane blockage. A 23% cost saving can be achieved by clearing one lane of a fully blocked two-hour major traffic incident after 90 minutes, while a 37% cost saving can be achieved by clearing all blockages after 90 minutes

Analysing freeway traffic incident duration using an Australian data set

This paper investigates incident duration and identifies contributing variables for Australian conditions. The paper presents a new framework for comprehensive traffic-incident data mining and analysis towards an incident delay model and travel-time reliability modelling. Twelve months of data were collected, analysed and the results are presented in this paper. The findings suggest that debris, breakdown and multiple-vehicle crashes are the major sources of incidents on freeways. Furthermore, freeway incident duration varied across the types of incident and time of the day, and whether it was a week day or weekend day. However, there were no significant differences in relation to day, week or month of the year. Significant variables on incident duration were identified using an ANOVA test for each type of incident. In addition, the findings of this study reveal a high variance of incident duration within each incident type. A variety of probability distribution functions were employed to test the best model for the duration frequency distribution for each category of incident. Log-normal distribution was found to be more appropriate for crashes, but log-logistic distribution was more appropriate for hazards and stationaryvehicle incidents

An analysis of traffic incidents on an Australian urban road network

Assessing and prioritising cost-effective strategies to mitigate the impact of traffic incidents on non-recurrent congestion on major roads are currently a major challenge for road network operations. There is a lack of relevant local research in this area. Several incident duration models developed from international research are not considered appropriate for Australian conditions due to different driver behaviour and traffic environment contexts. A comprehensive data mining research project was undertaken to analyse traffic incident data, obtained from the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads’ STREAMS Incident Management System (SIMS) for a one year period ending in November 2010. Various factors that contributed to frequency, type, characteristics, duration and location of traffic incidents were examined and the findings are discussed in this paper. Results indicate that breakdown, multiple vehicle crash and debris were the major sources of incidents. Although incident frequency dropped sharply on weekends, the average incident duration was similar or longer than those of weekdays. Also, rainfall increased the incident duration in all categories. Furthermore, a variety of probability distribution functions were employed in order to test the best model for each category of incident duration frequency distribution. Log-normal distribution was inferred to be appropriate for crash and stationary vehicle incidents and gamma distribution for hazard incidents. Future research directions have been identified, particularly the estimation of the impact (cost) of traffic incidents, to assist in prioritising investment