A Tool to Evaluate the Safety Effects of Changes in Freeway Traffic Flow

This study describes a tool developed for assessing the changes in traffic safety tendencies resulting from changes in traffic flow. The tool uses data from single inductive loop detectors, converting 30- second observations of volume and occupancy for multiple freeway lanes into traffic flow regimes. Each regime has a specific pattern of crash types determined through nonlinear multivariate analyses of over 1,000 crashes on freeways in Southern California. The analyses showed ways in which differences in variances in speeds and volumes across lanes, as well as central tendencies of speeds and volumes, combine in complex ways to explain crash taxonomy.

• Record URL:
  http://www.path.berkeley.edu/PATH/Publications/PDF/PWP/2003/PWP-2003-09.pdf
• Record URL:
  http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/1kn30323
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/10551417
• Corporate Authors:

  University of California, Berkeley

  California PATH Program, Institute of Transportation Studies
  Richmond Field Station, 1357 South 46th Street
  Richmond, CA  United States  94804-4648

  University of California, Irvine

  Institute of Transportation Studies
  4000 Anteater Instruction and Research Building
  Irvine, CA  United States  92697

  California Department of Transportation

  1120 N Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95814
• Authors:
  • Golob, Thomas F
  • Recker, Wilfred W
  • Alvarez, Veronica M
• Publication Date: 2003-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: 22 p.
• Serial:
  • PATH Working Paper
  • Publisher: University of California, Berkeley
  • ISSN: 1055-1417

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash analysis; Crashes; Freeways; Loop detectors; Speed volume relationships; Traffic flow; Traffic safety
• Geographic Terms: Southern California
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00961277
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: UC Berkeley Transportation Library
• Report/Paper Numbers: UCB-ITS-PWP-2003-9
• Files: PATH, CALTRANS, TRIS, ATRI, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Aug 4 2003 12:00AM