Traffic Safety Issues Research Articles

Dogs are the main species involved in animal-vehicle collisions in southern Spain: Daily, seasonal and spatial analyses of collisions.

Animal-vehicle collisions have become a serious traffic safety issue. Collisions have steadily increased over the last few decades, as have their associated socio-economic costs. Here, we explore the spatial and temporal patterns of animal-vehicle collisions reported to authorities in the province of Seville, southern Spain. Most animal-vehicle collisions involved domestic animals (>95%), particularly dogs (>80%), a pattern that sharply contrasts with that found in other Spanish and European regions, where collisions are mostly caused by game species. Dog-vehicle collisions were related to the traffic intensity of the roads and they were more frequent around dawn and dusk, coinciding with the peaks of activity of dogs. This pattern was consistent throughout the week, although on weekends there were fewer collisions due to lower traffic density at those times. These findings suggest that the aggregation of dog-vehicle collisions around twilight likely resulted from a combined effect of the activity peaks of dogs and traffic density. Seasonally, collisions increased in autumn and winter, coinciding with the period of intense hunting activity in the region. Further, during autumn and winter, rush hour partly overlaps with twilight due to longer nights in comparison with summer and spring, which may contribute to the increased rate of dog-vehicle collisions in these seasons. Spatially, satellite images of nighttime lights showed that dog-vehicle collisions were clustered near urban areas. Overall, the high incidence of stray dogs involved in animal-vehicle collisions highlights a road safety issue with this type of animals in the region.

Water Transportation in Bangkok: Past, Present, and the Future

Once, Bangkok was known to the world as the “Venice of the East.” However, the role of water based transport has diminished gradually over the last few decades and has vastly been replaced by traditional land-based transportation system. Nowadays, most of the waterway networks have been paved over with roads and the existing water transport facilities along the Chao Phraya river and its canals in Bangkok. Moreover, the existing system lacks adequate accessibility, inter-modal linkages as well as safety. This research study intends to present an overview of this public transport system together with its role and characteristics. In addition, it also intends to recommend some measures to improve the transportation system along these canals in Bangkok and exhibits how the reincarnation of this mode of transport can leave the urban transportation planners with substantial alternatives to provide mobility when traffic congestion and safety issues still remain unsolved in Bangkok. The study provides insight to incorporate water transport within the mainstream of transportation planning and progress towards a sustainable integrate transportation system which can alleviate the existing congestion and safety problems and eventually pacify the transformation of Bangkok from the “Venice of East” towards the “Jungle of Concrete.”

Contributing Factors of Traffic Accident and Their Possible Countermeasures in Debre Berhan Town, Ethiopia

Transportation is responsible for the development of civilizations from very old times. However road traffic accident is in a state of rise and recognized as a major socio-economic concern facing Ethiopia as the country. So, this study was conducted with an objective of assessing the traffic safety issue of Debre Berhan town on main highway which serves for the town and cross country traffic. The study followed a methodology of visual investigation of traffic accident location; and speed, traffic volume and traffic accident data collection. According to the data analysis, traffic accident in Debre Berhan was in increasing trend year to year with major accident characteristics of overturning followed by pedestrian accident. In addition, the primary causes of traffic accident in the town are investigated as speeding followed by failure to give way for pedestrian. Minibus and medium bus were responsible for more than 50% of all traffic accident recorded from all categories of vehicles. Around 50% of traffic accidents were contributed from age group of 18 – 30 years that need a primary concern; and the rates of accident on farmers are in alarming rate respect to other victims. Finally, appropriate engineering measures, police enforcement, training and education are recommended to solve the safety problems of the town. The main engineering measures for different location proposed include painted rumple strip to alarm the driver; speed limit sign provision; alternative pedestrian route; restrict parking on some locations that narrow the road and restrict passing; and others. The police enforcement may include on controlling of speeding and assuring the effectiveness of traffic law. A focus on training for young drivers seeking driving license was another recommendation in reduction of traffic accident. In addition, traffic safety education is recommended for students, public workers and farmers for significant reduction of traffic accident.

Exploring lane change safety issues for manually driven vehicles in vehicle platooning environments

Vehicle platooning, a beneficial feature of automated driving environments, is likely to affect the lane change behaviour of manually driven vehicles (MVs) because identifying proper gaps in vehicle platoons in the target lane will be more difficult than in the current non-platooning environment. These interactions between MVs and automated vehicles (AVs) could lead to a higher potential for unstable traffic flow, which is closely associated with traffic safety issues. The objective of this study was to investigate the lane change characteristics of MVs in AV platooning environments using driving simulator experiments. This research found that MV drivers tend to show more radical driving behaviour, as indicated by greater steering magnitude and steering velocity when they change lanes into the platooning vehicles' lane. Therefore, novel traffic operations strategies to manage MVs and AVs effectively are required to ensure traffic safety, which will be conducted by a future study.

Managing Public Communication Strategies in Accelerated Highway Construction Projects

An increase in traveling demands has urged state transportation agencies (STAs) to shorten highway construction project duration, using a variety of accelerated construction techniques and strategies. However, accelerated highway construction projects may impact communities in terms of traffic congestion, safety issues, and other public inconveniences. Effective communication with community stakeholders about these potential inconveniences can provide an opportunity to highlight innovative accomplishments and increase trust between STAs and the traveling public. Therefore, as some studies have shown, effective management of outreach strategies is a key success factor of accelerated construction projects. One of the main goals of this study is to gauge the effectiveness of public outreach tools and strategies in meeting different communication goals, including traffic avoidance, increasing driving awareness, decreasing impatient behavior, and building trust with the public. These tools range from traditional, low-tech methods, such as town hall meetings and static traffic signage, to high-tech methods, such as websites and social media. The data for this research is based on a survey of 71 experts from 40 different STAs. Statistical analyses (analysis of variance) indicate that the effectiveness of outreach tools vary significantly in achieving different communication goals during the construction phase of accelerated highway projects. In addition, the results allowed us to find the most appropriate outreach tools and strategies based on project characteristics and target audience. The findings of this research can help STAs and other public administrators to better manage their outreach activities during the accelerated construction projects.

Heterogeneous vehicular communications: A comprehensive study

Vehicular communications have developed rapidly contributing to the success of intelligent transportation systems. In VANET, continuous connectivity is a huge challenge caused by the extremely dynamic network topology and the highly variable number of mobile nodes. Moreover, message dissemination efficiency is a serious issue in traffic effectiveness and road safety. The heterogeneous vehicular network, which integrates cellular networks with DSRC, has been suggested and attracted significant attention recently. VANET-cellular integration offers many potential benefits, for instance, high data rates, low latency, and extended communication range. Due to the heterogeneous wireless access, a seamless handover decision is required to guarantee QoS of communications and to maintain continuous connectivity between the vehicles. On the other hand, VANET heterogeneous wireless networks integration will significantly help autonomous cars to be functional in reality. This paper surveys and reviews some related studies in the literature that deals with VANET heterogeneous wireless networks communications in term of vertical handover, data dissemination and collection, gateway selection and other issues. The comparison between different works is based on parameters like bandwidth, delay, throughput, and packet loss. Finally, we outline open issues that help to identify the future research directions of VANET in the heterogeneous environment.

Analysis of the stability control of the car with the admission to the infrastructure

The rolling stock and the railway track are a single stant tendency of the development of rail transport in relation to mechanical system. The running parts of the rolling stock and the the interaction of the power wheel-to-rail friction pair consists in track are interacting under difficult dynamic conditions. The con-increasing the axle load on the rails for freight rolling stock and further increasing the speed of the passenger trains. It takes a qualified approach to traffic safety issues and special attention to the stability of rolling stock to achieve these goals. An analysis of the stability control of the car with an admission to the infrastructure was carried out based on the regulatory documents that establish the main provisions and procedures for the operation of railways and railway workers. Authors proposed the elimination of existing shortcomings and ensuring the stability of the carriage motion by optimizing parameters of the placement of goods in the car. Calculations were made on the rollover stability conditions (stability loss) of the body and the criterion of the critical speed at which the carriage derailed due to the loss of contact of the wheels with the internal rail line of the curve. A method for controlling the stability of a car with a load by means of two-position weighing is proposed. The results obtained also make it possible to determine the height of the common center of gravity (CG), the magnitude of the longitudinal and lateral displacement of the center of gravity of the freight.

Modeling when and where a secondary accident occurs

The occurrence of secondary accidents leads to traffic congestion and road safety issues. Secondary accident prevention has become a major consideration in traffic incident management. This paper investigates the location and time of a potential secondary accident after the occurrence of an initial traffic accident. With accident data and traffic loop data collected over three years from California interstate freeways, a shock wave-based method was introduced to identify secondary accidents. A linear regression model and two machine learning algorithms, including a back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and a least squares support vector machine (LSSVM), were implemented to explore the distance and time gap between the initial and secondary accidents using inputs of crash severity, violation category, weather condition, tow away, road surface condition, lighting, parties involved, traffic volume, duration, and shock wave speed generated by the primary accident. From the results, the linear regression model was inadequate in describing the effect of most variables and its goodness-of-fit and accuracy in prediction was relatively poor. In the training programs, the BPNN and LSSVM demonstrated adequate goodness-of-fit, though the BPNN was superior with a higher CORR and lower MSE. The BPNN model also outperformed the LSSVM in time prediction, while both failed to provide adequate distance prediction. Therefore, the BPNN model could be used to forecast the time gap between initial and secondary accidents, which could be used by decision makers and incident management agencies to prevent or reduce secondary collisions.

Analysis of Road Traffic Safety in Minna Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract Road traffic accident is one of the major causes of death in Nigeria. Road accidents have taken away so many lives in Nigeria today that hardly does any single disease match its mortality prowess. People have died prematurely and properties worth several millions of Naira have been lost as a result of road traffic accident. This paper gives a full discussion on road traffic safety issues and the methodology used were through the collection of data using questionnaire and accident information from the Nigeria Police Force, FRSC etc. The primary information for this research was sourced through the use of structured questionnaire, personal observation and interviews of road users in the study area. Secondary data emanated from published and unpublished sources such as government records, internet, journals, books etc. The findings were presented in descriptive and inferential form using frequencies, percentages, tables, mean and chi-square analytical techniques. The findings from the study revealed among many others; that Male involved more in road accident compare to female counterpart in Minna Niger State. Private car had more accident compare to Taxi, The number of accident in each zone does not depend on the population of that zone, etc.

Corridor safety evaluation in a developing country using a survey based approach

ABSTRACTRoad traffic crashes are a major cause of concern in Saudi Arabia. Although the general view of the design and quality of Saudi Arabia's road network meets global standards, there is not enough in-depth analysis of crash locations and contributing factors and their relationship with user characteristics or behaviors. This study aims to investigate, analyze, and examine the safety problems on a main corridor in the Eastern Province and then suggest treatments to enhance the safety and explore the crash-risk factors associated with crashes on that corridor. A multiple survey approach was used to collect data from road users and experts. The survey addresses traffic safety issues and user behaviors on the corridor. To achieve the study aims, one-way analysis, two-way contingency table analysis, and structural equation modeling were applied. The results showed a need for adequate shoulders along the corridor, and the markings, signs, and signal timing should be reevaluated. In addition, greater restrictions on the use of mobile phones while driving are needed. Also television and radio programs are recommended for traffic awareness as reported by participants. Lastly, it showed that the multiple survey approach can be very useful when crash and geometric data are not available or incomplete.

Perceptions of alcohol-impaired driving and the blood alcohol concentration standard in the United States

IntroductionAlthough the number of alcohol-impaired driving (AID) fatalities has declined over the past several years, AID continues to be a serious public health problem. The purpose of this effort was to gain a better understanding of the U.S. driving population's perceptions and thoughts about the impacts of lowering the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) driving standard below.08% on AID, health, and other outcomes. MethodsA questionnaire was administered to a nationally representative sample of licensed drivers in the U.S. (n=1011) who were of age 21 or older on driving habits, alcohol consumption habits, drinking and driving habits, attitudes about drinking and driving, experiences with and opinions of drinking and driving laws, opinions about strategies to reduce drinking and driving, general concerns about traffic safety issues, and demographics. ResultsOne-third of participants supported lowering the legal BAC standard, and participants rated a BAC standard of .05% to be moderately acceptable on average. 63.9% indicated that lowering 30 the BAC to .05% would have no effect on their decisions to drink and drive. Nearly 60% of respondents lacked accurate knowledge of their state's BAC standard. ConclusionsPublic support for lowering the BAC standard was moderate and was partially tied to beliefs about the impacts of a change in the BAC standard. The results suggest that an opportunity for better educating the driving population about existing AID policy and the implications for lowering the BAC level on traffic injury prevention. Practical applicationsThe study results are useful for state traffic safety professionals and policy makers to have a better understanding of the public's perceptions of and thoughts about BAC standards. There is a clear need for more research into the effects of lowering the BAC standard on crashes, arrests, AID behavior, and alcohol-related behaviors.

Influence of pedestrian age and gender on spatial and temporal distribution of pedestrian crashes

ABSTRACTObjectives: Every year, about 1.24 million people are killed in traffic crashes worldwide and more than 22% of these deaths are pedestrians. Therefore, pedestrian safety has become a significant traffic safety issue worldwide. In order to develop effective and targeted safety programs, the location- and time-specific influences on vehicle–pedestrian crashes must be assessed. The main purpose of this research is to explore the influence of pedestrian age and gender on the temporal and spatial distribution of vehicle–pedestrian crashes to identify the hotspots and hot times.Methods: Data for all vehicle–pedestrian crashes on public roadways in the Melbourne metropolitan area from 2004 to 2013 are used in this research. Spatial autocorrelation is applied in examining the vehicle–pedestrian crashes in geographic information systems (GIS) to identify any dependency between time and location of these crashes. Spider plots and kernel density estimation (KDE) are then used to determine the temporal and spatial patterns of vehicle–pedestrian crashes for different age groups and genders.Results: Temporal analysis shows that pedestrian age has a significant influence on the temporal distribution of vehicle–pedestrian crashes. Furthermore, men and women have different crash patterns. In addition, results of the spatial analysis shows that areas with high risk of vehicle–pedestrian crashes can vary during different times of the day for different age groups and genders. For example, for those between ages 18 and 65, most vehicle–pedestrian crashes occur in the central business district (CBD) during the day, but between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., crashes among this age group occur mostly around hotels, clubs, and bars.Conclusions: This research reveals that temporal and spatial distributions of vehicle–pedestrian crashes vary for different pedestrian age groups and genders. Therefore, specific safety measures should be in place during high crash times at different locations for different age groups and genders to increase the effectiveness of the countermeasures in preventing and reducing vehicle–pedestrian crashes.

Effects of Intersection Lighting Design on Nighttime Visual Performance of Drivers

ABSTRACTNighttime crashes at intersections present a major traffic safety issue in the United States. Existing approaches to intersection lighting design do not account for a driver’s visual performance or the potential interactive effects of vehicle headlamps and roadway lighting. For effective design lighting at intersections, empirical research is required to evaluate the effects of lighting configuration (part of the intersection illuminated) and lighting levels on nighttime driver visual performance. The current study had two goals: First, to quantify visual performance in three lighting configurations (illuminating the intersection box, approach, or both) and second, to determine what lighting levels within each lighting configuration support the best visual performance. The study involved a target detection task completed at night on a realistic roadway intersection. Illuminating the intersection box led to superior visual performance, as indicated by longer target detection distances, fewer missed targets, and more targets identified within a safe stopping distance. For this lighting configuration, visual performance plateaued between 7 and 10 lx of mean intersection illuminance. These results have important implications for the design of intersection lighting at isolated/rural intersections, specifically that illuminating the intersection box is an effective strategy to increase nighttime visual performance for a wider range of driver ages and could also be an energy-efficient solution.

Classifying Drivers' Cognitive Load Using EEG Signals.

A growing traffic safety issue is the effect of cognitive loading activities on traffic safety and driving performance. To monitor drivers' mental state, understanding cognitive load is important since while driving, performing cognitively loading secondary tasks, for example talking on the phone, can affect the performance in the primary task, i.e. driving. Electroencephalography (EEG) is one of the reliable measures of cognitive load that can detect the changes in instantaneous load and effect of cognitively loading secondary task. In this driving simulator study, 1-back task is carried out while the driver performs three different simulated driving scenarios. This paper presents an EEG based approach to classify a drivers' level of cognitive load using Case-Based Reasoning (CBR). The results show that for each individual scenario as well as using data combined from the different scenarios, CBR based system achieved approximately over 70% of classification accuracy.

Analysis of drivers’ errors at roundabouts in Morocco

Roundabouts have increased in a significant way in recent years in Moroccan cities as they have been seen as a solution to congestion problems and traffic safety issues. However, roundabouts are relatively new to Moroccan drivers and the rules of priority to which the users are accustomed are reversed in roundabouts. This can lead to confusion and misleading. The overall objective of this study is to identify roundabout features that appear to play a role in the difficulties that drivers encounter when crossing roundabouts. This paper will present a comprehensive understanding of what is required of drivers when crossing roundabouts. We then predict failures that can occur at roundabout using our driver error taxonomy. A case study of two roundabouts in Morocco is analyzed as illustration. The paper concludes with implications of the findings to future design.

The Use of Adaptive Traffic Signal Systems Based on Floating Car Data

This paper presents a simple concept which has not been, up to now, thoroughly explored in scientific research: the use of information coming from the network of Internet connected mobile devices (on vehicles) to regulate traffic light systems. Three large-scale changes are going to shape the future of transportation and could lead to the regulation of traffic signal system based on floating car data (FCD): (i) the implementation of Internet connected cars with global navigation satellite (GNSS) system receivers and the autonomous car revolution; (ii) the spreading of mobile cooperative Web 2.0 and the extension to connected vehicles; (iii) an increasing need for sustainability of transportation in terms of energy efficiency, traffic safety, and environmental issues. Up to now, the concept of floating car data (FCD) has only been extensively used to obtain traffic information and estimate traffic parameters. Traffic lights regulation based on FCD technology has not been fully researched since the implementation requires new ideas and algorithms. This paper intends to provide a seminal insight into the important issue of adaptive traffic light based on FCD by presenting ideas that can be useful to researchers and engineers in the long-term task of developing new algorithms and systems that may revolutionize the way traffic lights are regulated.

Development of Strategic Goals of Road Safety Management: A Case Study of Montenegro

Evaluation of the results of road safety management at the national level is carried out with a number of predefined indicators. These, predefined indicators should be measurable objectives of road safety management. They are set by national road safety strategies. This paper presents the control implementation of the Strategy to improve road safety in Montenegro for the period 2010-2019. The research showed that the five-year objectives of the National Strategy were achieved in the first years and significantly surmounted. This efficiency is achieved for two main reasons: the development of road safety management, and setting an unambitious, easily attainable goal. These findings are indicators that generally and globally set goals of reducing traffic fatalities cannot comprise at the same time national objectives in all countries. In this context, the methodological improvements of setting national strategic objectives established by the evidences on the national traffic safety issue are proposed.

Does haptic steering guidance instigate speeding? A driving simulator study into causes and remedies

An important issue in road traffic safety is that drivers show adverse behavioral adaptation (BA) to driver assistance systems. Haptic steering guidance is an upcoming assistance system which facilitates lane-keeping performance while keeping drivers in the loop, and which may be particularly prone to BA. Thus far, experiments on haptic steering guidance have measured driver performance while the vehicle speed was kept constant. The aim of the present driving simulator study was to examine whether haptic steering guidance causes BA in the form of speeding, and to evaluate two types of haptic steering guidance designed not to suffer from BA. Twenty-four participants drove a 1.8m wide car for 13.9km on a curved road, with cones demarcating a single 2.2m narrow lane. Participants completed four conditions in a counterbalanced design: no guidance (Manual), continuous haptic guidance (Cont), continuous guidance that linearly reduced feedback gains from full guidance at 125km/h towards manual control at 130km/h and above (ContRF), and haptic guidance provided only when the predicted lateral position was outside a lateral bandwidth (Band). Participants were familiarized with each condition prior to the experimental runs and were instructed to drive as they normally would while minimizing the number of cone hits. Compared to Manual, the Cont condition yielded a significantly higher driving speed (on average by 7km/h), whereas ContRF and Band did not. All three guidance conditions yielded better lane-keeping performance than Manual, whereas Cont and ContRF yielded lower self-reported workload than Manual. In conclusion, continuous steering guidance entices drivers to increase their speed, thereby diminishing its potential safety benefits. It is possible to prevent BA while retaining safety benefits by making a design adjustment either in lateral (Band) or in longitudinal (ContRF) direction.

Temporal patterns of moose-vehicle collisions with and without personal injuries

Collisions with wild ungulates are an increasing traffic safety issue in boreal regions. Crashes involving smaller-bodied deer species usually lead to vehicle damage only, whereas collisions with a large animal, such as the moose, increase the risk of personal injuries. It is therefore important to understand both the factors affecting the number of moose-vehicle collisions (MVCs) and the underlying causes that turn an MVC into an accident involving personal injuries or fatalities. As a basis for temporal mitigation measures, we examined the annual and monthly variation of MVCs with and without personal injuries. Using a 22-year-long (1990–2011) time series from Finland, we tested the effect of moose population density and traffic volume on the yearly number of all MVCs and those leading to personal injuries. We also examined the monthly distribution of MVCs with and without personal injuries, and contrasted the Finnish findings with collision data from Sweden (years 2008–2010) and Norway (years 2008–2011). Both moose population abundance indices and traffic volume were positively related to the yearly variation in the number of MVCs in Finland. The proportion of MVCs involving personal injuries decreased during our 22-year study period. The monthly distribution of all MVCs peaked during the autumn or winter depending on country, while MVCs involving personal injury peaked in summer. Our study indicates that efforts to reduce MVCs involving personal injuries need to address driver awareness and attitudes during summer, despite most MVCs occurring in autumn or winter.

LCDs: Lane-Changing Aid System Based on Speed of Vehicles

Lane change is an important issue in microscopic traffic flow simulations and active safety. Overtaking and changing lanes are dangerous driving maneuvers. This approach presents a lane-changing system based on speed and a minimum gap between vehicles in a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET). This paper proposes a solution to ensure the safety of drivers while changing lanes on highways. Efficient routing protocols could play a crucial role in VANET applications, safeguarding both drivers and passengers, and thus, maintaining a safe on-road environment. This paper focuses on the development of an intelligent transportation system that provides timely, reliable information to drivers and the concerned authorities. A test bed is created for the techniques used in the proposed system, where analysis takes place in an on-board embedded system designed for vehicle navigation. The designed system was tested on a four-lane road in Neemrana, India. Successful simulations were conducted with real-time network parameters to maximize quality of service and performance using Simulation of Urban Mobility and Network Simulator 2 (NS-2). The system implementation, together with the findings, is presented in this paper. Illustrating the approach are results from simulation using NS-2.