Evaluation Method of Highway Safety Maintenance Based on the Two-Dimensional Cloud Model Considering Equilibrium

Abstract

In recent years, the total length of highways in service has been continuously increasing, and the demand for highway transportation has also increased. The damages and defects of highway and its supporting facilities with aging have serious effects on operation efficiency and driving safety. This paper studied the evaluation method of highway safety maintenance to assess the safety condition of highway and its supporting facilities. Firstly, an evaluation index system of highway safety maintenance was established from two major aspects: road structure and environment conditions, safety protection and management conditions. Secondly, the impact of discrete degree of index scores on the evaluation result of cloud model was analyzed, and then the equilibrium fine-tuning factor was proposed to improve the weighted mode between weights and scores. Based on the two-dimensional cloud model, a general process of safety evaluation considering the equilibrium fine-tuning factor was thus developed, and a cloud similarity algorithm based on the membership degree method was also proposed. Finally, a numerical study was carried out to validate the proposed model, and the sensitivity analysis of equilibrium significance α was conducted. The results showed that the impact of equilibrium fine-tuning factor on the comprehensive evaluation result is unneglectable, and the proposed method conforms to the reality of safety evaluation better, which can be applied in the highway safety maintenance evaluation for future reference.