Utilizing Micro Simulation to Evaluate the Safety and Efficiency of the Expressway System

The main objective of this study was to improve the safety of an expressway system based on safety analysis and microscopic simulation. To achieve the proposed objective, several tasks were carried out. Task 1: Evaluating the stability of the three types of safety analyses in identifying the important contributing factors and their ability to use the identified variables to predict safety conditions; Task 2: Identifying the most dangerous expressway segment type based on safety analyses using average daily traffic (ADT), average hourly traffic (AHT), and microscopic data; Task 3: Exploring the crash mechanism of the most dangerous expressway segment type using real-time safety analysis; Task 4: Building a well-calibrated and validated VISSIM network for an expressway segment with high crash potential; and Task 5: Testing the impact of active traffic management (ATM) on the safety of the expressway segment identified by Task 4. This report begins with a literature review on existing crash analysis and ATM strategies. Chapter 3 describes the data that were collected, including crash, traffic, road geometric characteristics, and weather data. Chapter 4 focuses on safety analysis of an expressway system based on traffic data aggregated at different levels: ADT, AHT, and microscopic traffic. Chapter 5 conducted a real-time safety analysis for weaving segments, which were identified as the most dangerous segment type by Chapter 4. Chapter 6 and 7 build a microscopic simulation, VISSIM network for a congested weaving segment and apply ATM to reduce the crash risk on the segment. Conclusions are summarized in Chapter 8.

  • Record URL:
  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
  • Corporate Authors:

    University of Central Florida, Orlando

    Electric Vehicle Transportation Center, College of Engineering and Computer Science
    Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, P.O. Box 162450
    Orlando, FL  United States  32816-2450

    Safety Research Using Simulation University Transportation Center (SaferSim)

    University of Iowa
    Iowa City, IA  United States  52242

    Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

    University Transportation Centers Program
    Department of Transportation
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Authors:
    • Lee, Jaeyoung
    • Abdel-Aty, Mohamed
    • Wang, Ling
  • Publication Date: 2016-8

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Edition: Final Report
  • Features: Appendices; Figures; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 113p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01616919
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: UTC, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
  • Created Date: Nov 21 2016 1:26PM