Safety Performance of Truck Lane Restrictions in Texas: Empirical Bayes Observational Before–After Analysis

Truck Lane Restrictions (TLR) have become increasingly popular throughout the United States over the last 20 years due to the improvement in traffic operations and safety, pavement life, and other associated factors. This study examines the safety performance of the TLRs that have been implemented in the North Texas region. TLR prohibit semi- trucks (trucks) from using the left-most freeway lane, or inner lane, except in passing or emergency maneuvers. This study uses 16 sites with TLR in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to conduct an observational before-after study. For safety effectiveness analysis, it is always hard to get three years before and three years after data. For immediate safety effectiveness analysis, sophisticated predictive tools could be used in estimating “after” year crashes. This study used the Enhanced Interchange Safety Analysis Tool (ISATe) to supplement the limited after year crash data. This study used Empirical Bayes (EB) method due to its consideration of regression-to-mean bias. The findings show that TLRs perform an overall positive safety effectiveness for large truck involved fatal and injury crashes for six-lane roadways. This study concludes that implementing TLR as a truck-related safety strategy which are cost-effective to implement, may contribute to improving safety on urban freeways.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB70 Standing Committee on Truck and Bus Safety.
• Authors:
  • Das, Subasish
  • Le, Minh
  • Pratt, Michael P
  • Morgan, Curtis
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bayes' theorem; Before and after studies; Crash data; Highway safety; Lane distribution; Traffic lanes; Truck traffic; Urban highways
• Geographic Terms: Dallas-Fort Worth; Texas
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01661238
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-03661
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2018 1:43PM