Safety Evaluation of Highway Transportation Environment in Water Sensitive Sections: Case Study of Boshen Highway in China

Abstract

China was striving to build “Smooth, Efficient, Safe, Green” comprehensive transportation system, which demanded highways to meet traffic safety functional requirements and regional ecological environmental safety requirements as well. A lot of researches in highway traffic safety and highway ecological environment evaluation at home and aboard had been made and achieved considerable results. However, there were few researches to combine highway traffic safety and highway ecological environment safety together. In this paper, the concept of highway transportation environment safety was proposed firstly based on the combination study of highway traffic safety and highway ecological environmental safety. The prediction model of highway traffic accidents was built using horizontal and vertical alignment, traffic volume, traffic composition and other data, and the evaluation system of water environment along highway was also established include the main indicators of water environment function, water quality, service population and water supply area. The method of safety evaluation of highway transportation environment in water sensitive sections was developed through the prediction of highway traffic safety and the sensitivity evaluation of water environment along highway. Though the case study of Boshen highway in Guangdong Province in China, the evaluation method of highway transportation environment safety was validated and it was proved the protective countermeasures can improve the efficiency of highway safety facilities, which would have an important theoretical and practical significance in building the safe highway transport environment system and the promotion of highway ecological environmental protection and sustainable development in China.