Safety and Mobility Impacts of Winter Weather - Phase 3

Highway agencies spend millions of dollars to ensure safe and efficient winter travel. However, the effectiveness of winter weather maintenance practices on safety and mobility are somewhat difficult to quantify. Safety and Mobility Impacts of Winter Weather - Phase 1 investigated opportunities for improving traffic safety on state-maintained roads in Iowa during winter weather conditions. The primary objective was to develop several preliminary means for the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) to identify locations of possible interest systematically with respect to winter weather-related safety performance based on crash history. Specifically, four metrics were developed to assist in identifying possible habitual, winter weather-related crash sites on state-maintained rural highways in Iowa. In addition, the current state of practice, for both domestic and international highway agency practices, regarding integration of traffic safety- and mobility-related data in winter maintenance activities and performance measures were investigated. This investigation also included previous research efforts. In Phase 2, a combination of the Phase 1 results, and Iowa DOT Maintenance Field staff input, were then employed to evaluate three Iowa DOT high priority sites. Winter weather crash mitigation analysis procedures were developed and applied for these three sites. Realistic maintenance and operations mitigation strategies were also identified. The primary objectives of Phase 3 of this project are to: 1) develop a systematic site prioritization protocol, 2) analyze winter weather and crash history at the prioritized sites, 3) identify possible mitigation strategies, and 4) develop a prediction model of crash risk as a function of winter weather-related variables and traffic-related variables.

• Record URL:
  http://matc.unl.edu/research/research_projects.php?researchID=413

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $39496.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT12-G-UTC07

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  Iowa State University, Ames

  Institute for Transportation Studies
  2711 S. Loop Drive, Suite 4700, Program for Sustainable Pavement Engineering and Research (PROSPER)
  Ames, IA  United States  50010-8864
• Principal Investigators:

  Hawkins, Neal

  Hans, Zachary

• Start Date: 20120701
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20140630
• Source Data: RiP Project 33522

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash risk forecasting; Mobility; State of the practice; Traffic safety; Winter maintenance
• Uncontrolled Terms: Crash prediction models
• Geographic Terms: Iowa
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01495771
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Mid-America Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT12-G-UTC07
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Oct 18 2013 1:00AM