DETERMINING HAZARDOUSNESS OF SPOT LOCATIONS

This paper presents a procedure to assess hazardousness at spot locations on all highway facilities except freeways and in central business districts. Indications of hazardousness included in the rating procedure are number of accidents per year, accident rate in terms of annual traffic volumes, accident severity, volume/capacity ratio, sight distance, traffic conflicts, erratic maneuvers, driver expectancy, and information-system deficiencies. A raw-data format was selected for each of these indicators, and a scaling technique was developed that permits the combination of inputs from the several indicators to produce a hazardousness rating on a scale from 0 to 100. The procedure may be used even if data on all indicators are not available for a given site (level of confidence in the results diminishes). Sixteen traffic engineers and safety experts, representing 14 states, were invited to two workshops to review the procedures formulated and to assist in establishing the weights to be assigned to each of the indicators. The general concept underlying the convergence-of-evidence procedure is highly acceptable to the safety personnel who participated in the workshops. Of special note is the development of a workable form for obtaining subjective evaluations of hazardousness in various highway situations. /Author/

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1977/630/630-009.pdf
• Summary URL:
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=DETERMINING+HAZARDOUSNESS+OF+SPOT+LOCATIONS&author=J.+Taylor&author=H.+Thompson&publication_year=1977
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/03611981
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Effectiveness of Operational Measures. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Authors:
  • Taylor, James I
  • Thompson, Harold T
• Publication Date: 1977

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 38-43
• Monograph Title: Evaluation of transportation operational improvements
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 630
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash rates; Crash severity; Driver information systems; Hazards; High risk locations; Highway capacity; Highway safety; Problem drivers; Ratings; Reckless drivers; Sight distance; Traffic conflicts; Traffic volume
• Old TRIS Terms: Erratic driving behavior
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00170563
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309026555
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 12 1978 12:00AM