Change of Road Integrated Design Consistency due to Antiskid Transverse Rumble Strips on High-Speed Federal Road FT050

Abstract

Abstract Malaysia is one of many developing countries that have a high rate of road accidents. Most accidents happen to motorcyclists and car users, and motorcycles are deemed 17 times more dangerous than passenger cars. One of the most common accident types are collisions between motorcycles and passenger cars due to a lack of geometric design consistency on roads, wherein drivers make errors because of geometric features. Therefore, this study is conducted to develop a consistency model for motorcycle-car collisions based on the characteristics of the geometric design on the roads and vehicle continuous speed profiles. The study was conducted on the FT050 federal road in Malaysia, from km 31 to km 35. Use of a DG-200 global positioning system (GlobalSat, New Taipei City, Taiwan), the continuous speed profile was extracted to develop road design consistency profiles based on the following parameters: the bounded area between the profile, the average speed, and the standard deviation of speed along the road. Furthermore, the study investigated the effects of antiskid transverse rumble strip treatment along the section of km 34 to km 35 after the rumble strip treatment. The installation of antiskid transverse rumble strips generally produced a significant reduction in vehicle speeds on the Federal Road FT050, which has posted speed limits of 60 km/h. The mean speed along the sections with antiskid rumble strips declined by 3.4 km/h on federal roads with a speed limit of 60 km/h. The 85th percentile speed declined to 3.8 km/h with a speed limit of 60 km/h. The profiles show that the influence area of antiskid rumble strips would be generally less than 0.5 km. The km 34 to km 35 road section, which is justified based on the design consistency of the area and on the integrated design consistency model between car and motorcycle, is found to be acceptable.