Proceedings of the 2013 National Wrong-Way Driving Summit

The first National Wrong-Way Driving (WWD) Summit was held July 18 and 19, 2013, at the Morris University Center (MUC) of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE). The purpose of this summit, which was sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT) and Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), was to provide a platform for practitioners and researchers to exchange ideas, evaluate current countermeasures, and develop best practices to reduce WWD crashes and incidents through a 4E’s approach (Engineering, Education, Enforcement, and Emergency Response)Illinois Department of Transportation, R27-090published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe

Guidelines for Reducing Wrong-Way Crashes on Freeways

Each year, hundreds of fatal wrong-way driving (WWD) crashes occur across the United States, and thousands of injuries are reported in traffic crashes caused by wrong-way drivers. Although WWD crashes have been a concern since the advent of access-controlled, divided roadways, the problem persists despite efforts to address it over time. The objective of this book is to provide guidance for implementing traditional and advanced safety countermeasures to achieve a significant reduction in the number of WWD incidents and crashes on freeways.Illinois Department of Transportation, R27-090published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Prediction of Potential Wrong-Way Entries at Exit Ramps of Signalized Partial Cloverleaf Interchanges

<div><p><b>Background:</b> Several previous studies, based upon wrong-way driving (WWD) crash history, have demonstrated that partial cloverleaf (parclo) interchanges are more susceptible to WWD movements than others. Currently, there is not a method available to predict WWD incidents and to prioritize parclo interchanges for implementing safety countermeasures for reducing WWD crashes.</p><p><b>Objectives:</b> The focus of this manuscript is to develop a mathematical method to estimate the probability of WWD incidents at exit ramp terminals of this type of interchange.</p><p><b>Methods:</b> VISSIM traffic simulation models, calibrated by field data, are utilized to estimate the number of potential WWD maneuvers under various traffic volumes on exit ramps and crossroads. The Poisson distribution model was implemented without field observation and crash data.</p><p><b>Results:</b> A comparison between the field data and simulation outputs revealed that the developed model enjoys an acceptable level of accuracy. The proposed model is largely sensitive to left-turn volume toward an entrance ramp (LVE) than stopped vehicles at an exit ramp (SVE). The results indicated that potential WWD events increase when LVEs increase and SVEs decrease. Also, the probability of WWD event decreases as road users are more familiar with the facility.</p><p><b>Conclusion:</b> The proposed method can diminish one of the challenges in front of transportation engineers, which is to identify high WWD crash locations due to insufficient information in crash reports. The results are helpful for transportation professionals to take proactive steps to identify locations for implementing safety countermeasures at high risk signalized parclo interchanges.</p></div

Statistical Characteristics of Wrong-Way Driving Crashes on Illinois Freeways

<div><p><b>Objective:</b> Driving the wrong way on freeways, namely wrong-way driving (WWD), has been found to be a major concern for more than 6 decades. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of this type of crash as well as to rank the locations/interchanges according to their vulnerability to WWD entries.</p><p><b>Methods:</b> The WWD crash data on Illinois freeways were statistically analyzed for a 6-year time period (2004 to 2009) from 3 aspects: crash, vehicle, and person. The temporal distributions, geographical distributions, roadway characteristics, and crash locations were analyzed for WWD crashes. The driver demographic information, physical condition, and injury severity were analyzed for wrong-way drivers. The vehicle characteristics, vehicle operation, and collision results were analyzed for WWD vehicles. A method was brought about to identify wrong-way entry points that was then used to develop a relative-importance technique and rank different interchange types in terms of potential WWD incidents.</p><p><b>Results:</b> The findings revealed that a large proportion of WWD crashes occurred during the weekend from midnight to 5 a.m. Approximately 80% of WWD crashes were located in urban areas and nearly 70% of wrong-way vehicles were passenger cars. Approximately 58% of wrong-way drivers were driving under the influence (DUI). Of those, nearly 50% were confirmed to be impaired by alcohol, about 4% were impaired by drugs, and more than 3% had been drinking. The analysis of interchange ranking found that compressed diamond interchanges, single point diamond interchanges (SPDIs), partial cloverleaf interchanges, and freeway feeders had the highest wrong-way crash rates (wrong-way crashes per 100 interchanges per year).</p><p><b>Conclusions:</b> The findings of this study call for more attention to WWD crashes from different aspects such as driver age group, time of day, day of week, and DUI drivers. Based on the analysis results of WWD distance, the study explained why a 5-mile radius of WWD crash location should be studied for WWD fatal crashes with unknown entry points.</p></div

Prediction of Potential Wrong-Way Entries at Exit Ramps of Signalized Partial Cloverleaf Interchanges

<div><p><b>Background:</b> Several previous studies, based upon wrong-way driving (WWD) crash history, have demonstrated that partial cloverleaf (parclo) interchanges are more susceptible to WWD movements than others. Currently, there is not a method available to predict WWD incidents and to prioritize parclo interchanges for implementing safety countermeasures for reducing WWD crashes.</p><p><b>Objectives:</b> The focus of this manuscript is to develop a mathematical method to estimate the probability of WWD incidents at exit ramp terminals of this type of interchange.</p><p><b>Methods:</b> VISSIM traffic simulation models, calibrated by field data, are utilized to estimate the number of potential WWD maneuvers under various traffic volumes on exit ramps and crossroads. The Poisson distribution model was implemented without field observation and crash data.</p><p><b>Results:</b> A comparison between the field data and simulation outputs revealed that the developed model enjoys an acceptable level of accuracy. The proposed model is largely sensitive to left-turn volume toward an entrance ramp (LVE) than stopped vehicles at an exit ramp (SVE). The results indicated that potential WWD events increase when LVEs increase and SVEs decrease. Also, the probability of WWD event decreases as road users are more familiar with the facility.</p><p><b>Conclusion:</b> The proposed method can diminish one of the challenges in front of transportation engineers, which is to identify high WWD crash locations due to insufficient information in crash reports. The results are helpful for transportation professionals to take proactive steps to identify locations for implementing safety countermeasures at high risk signalized parclo interchanges.</p></div