Abstract
Suburban roads are an important part of China’s road network and essential infrastructure for rural development. Poorly designed road curves and scarcity of traffic signs have caused an excessively high traffic accident rate in plain topographical areas. In this study, an approach to evaluate and improve rural road traffic safety is introduced. Based on fuzzy and cask theory and weighted analysis, a cask evaluation model is built. It provides a quantitative instant method for analyzing road safety in the absence of traffic accident information or rigorous road space data, by identifying dangerous sections and key impact factors, and ultimately help to put forward traffic safety improvements. Based on the application to a specific section of Xiaodang Central Road in the Fengxian District of Shanghai, the result shows that the pavement conditions of cement-hardened dual-lane rural roads was good, but traffic safety was poor. Missing traffic signs, unreasonable road alignment, and poor roadside conditions were the main problems. Finally, improvements of the short-stave subsystem were proposed: the location of guide signs and roadside conditions should be improved, and the number and efficacy of the rural road traffic signs need to be increased, and markings should be and receive regular maintenance.
Highlights
In China, traffic accidents cause an enormous number of casualties and extremely high property losses every year
A single factor, such as negligence of drivers may be confirmed as the main cause of accident, most of the traffic accidents are due to a number of factors, and other important factors such as the road design and/or difficult driving conditions related to road conditions are often ignored
This research aims at introduces a cask evaluation model to evaluate and improve rural road traffic safety based on fuzzy theory, weighted analysis, and cask theory, and this rural road traffic safety model is practically applied to evaluate and improve the safety performance of Xiaodang Central Road in the Fengxian District of Shanghai
Summary
In China, traffic accidents cause an enormous number of casualties and extremely high property losses every year. A single factor, such as negligence of drivers may be confirmed as the main cause of accident, most of the traffic accidents are due to a number of factors, and other important factors such as the road design and/or difficult driving conditions related to road conditions are often ignored. Factors concerning road design and condition play an extremely important role in initiating traffic accidents. Scholars from the Soviet Union have reported that the impact of poor road conditions is a direct or indirect cause of 70% of traffic accidents, and this has been confirmed by similar research results from the European Union [2]. Assessment of the safety of road conditions is an important measure for reducing traffic accidents [3]
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