Crash Analysis to Improve Winter Weather Traffic Safety

Weather affects many aspects of transportation, but there are three predominant and measurable dimensions of inclement weather’s impact on highway traffic: traffic demand, traffic safety, and traffic flow relationships. Understanding these impacts will help highway agencies, transportation companies, and individuals better manage the risks and uncertainties inherent in inclement weather conditions. Traditionally highway agencies, transportation companies, and individuals have primarily reacted to inclement weather and attempted to mitigate its impacts. With a better understanding of weather’s impacts, however, and with better weather forecasts, transportation agencies, transportation firms, and individuals can more proactively manage their requirements and actions before and during inclement weather. This paper describes work being done at Iowa State University’s Center for Weather Impacts on Mobility and Safety (C-WIMS) working with the Iowa Department of Transportation to quantify weather’s impact on highway traffic and how we are seeking solutions problematic winter weather safety problems. Ultimately our analysis drills down to specific location of individual winter weather related crashes over a ten year period on Iowa’s interstates system. Maps of the worst winter weather crash locations were presented to Iowa’s garage level managers and select operators to help them make adjustments to snow-plow truck routing and schedules and winter maintenance application to address winter weather related crashes.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Maze, Thomas H
  • Hans, Zachary
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Mobility; Snowplows; Traffic; Traffic flow; Traffic safety; Travel demand; Weather; Weather conditions; Winter; Winter maintenance
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I62: Winter Maintenance; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01046309
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-1825
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 8 2007 6:32PM