TRAFFIC CONFLICTS FOR ROAD USER SAFETY STUDIES

In this paper the researcher advocates an approach to road safety studies in which traffic conflicts are used as indicators of roadway hazard. The critical traffic process event used to define conflict severity is the time to collision, modified by an observer's evaluation of the risk of collision. Field studies were done to assess the validity, reliability, and practicality of traffic conflicts. Experiments wre conducted to test the threshold value of time to collision, and to examine a visual perception theory of crash avoidance behaviour. The experiments demonstrate that a time to collision threshold value of 1.5 is a reasonable time-based index of hazard and that a visual perception model of breaking is a promising concept. The wider potential for traffic conflicts as a measure of driver risk, and as a basis for safety models, is discussed in the paper. The technique has been used for some 45 intersection safety studies. From the application to date it appears that the systematic observation of crash avoidance behaviour of drivers in unsafe conditions provides a useful tool for traffic engineering analysis of intersection traffic control and design problems. (A)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/03151468
• Corporate Authors:

  National Research Council of Canada

  1200 Montreal Road
  Ottawa, Ontario  Canada  K1A 0R6
• Authors:
  • Brown, G R
• Publication Date: 1994-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 1-15
• Serial:
  • Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering
  • Volume: XXI
  • Issue Number: I
  • Publisher: National Research Council of Canada
  • ISSN: 0315-1468
  • Serial URL: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/loi/cjce

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Crashes; Drivers; Hazards; Intersections; Mathematical analysis; Methodology; Prevention; Safety; Traffic engineering; Travelers
• ITRD Terms: 1661: Accident prevention; 6471: Analysis (math); 9001: Behaviour; 1631: Collision; 1772: Driver; 455: Junction; 9102: Method; 9150: Risk; 1755: Road user; 1665: Safety; 655: Traffic engineering
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00680226
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Jun 27 1995 12:00AM