Proactive Evaluation of Traffic Safety at An Unsignalized Intersection Using Micro- Simulation

Abstract

 Abstract—Traffic safety is an important area in transportation engineering. Presently, most traffic safety assessment and prediction related work is based on the use of historical accident data that has known drawbacks related to the quality and coverage of data especially in developing countries like India. For the assessment of roadway solutions in the future, it is impractical and unethical to wait for accidents to occur before being able to draw statistically sound conclusions regarding safety impact. Hence there is a need to develop proactive models based on Surrogate Safety Measures (SSMs) for a more effective safety evaluation. The main advantage associated with the use of safety indicators is that they occur considerably more frequently than accidents, thereby implying an efficient and more statistically reliable proximal measure of traffic safety. The objective of this study is to assess the level of traffic safety at an uncontrolled intersection using microsimulation modeling under mixed traffic condition by devising a unique strategy of measuring proximal safety indicator, Post Encroachment Time (PET).