Road Safety System Research Articles

Travolution-An Embedded System in Passenger Car For Road Safety

Road traffic crashes are one of the world’s largest public health and injury deterrence problems. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a million people are killed in road accidents, each year, all over the world. A report published by the WHO in 2009 revealed that more people die on roads in India than anywhere else in the world. The statistics for India are chilling. At least 13 people die every hour in road accidents in the country; the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau reveals. In 2007, 1.14 lakh people in India lost their lives in road mishaps. Poor road infrastructure, failure to comply with speed limits, growing drinking and driving habits is among the main factors contributing to deaths from road crashes, WHO said in its report on 'Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2010. Each year, there are thousands of highway deaths and tens of thousands of serious injuries due to Run-Off-Road accidents. Everything from simple driver inattentiveness, to fatigue, callousness, to drunk driving, is responsible. Simple sensors can be fitted inside vehicles embedded with various features like, automatic collision notification, vehicle security, speed control which can give impetus to an efficient road safety system. The features that are proposed in this work are: Automatic collision notification that gives notification to the victim’s relative, Red light traffic control makes sure vehicle doesn’t break signal, Speed control alters speed in different zones, Horn control prevents honking in horn prohibited zone, Alcohol detection detects drunk driving and Vehicle security is used to prevent theft.

Cloud-Based Pedestrian Road-Safety with Situation-Adaptive Energy-Efficient Communication

Pedestrian detection using wireless communication complements sensor-based pedestrian detection in driverless and conventional cars. This fusion improves road-safety particularly in obstructed visibility and bad weather conditions. This paper seeks developing such wireless-based vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) collision avoidance using energy-efficient methods and non-dedicated existing technologies namely smartphones (widespread among pedestrians and drivers), cellular network and cloud. Our roadsafety mobile app can be set to driver mode or pedestrian mode. This app frequently sends vehicle and pedestrian geolocation data (beacons) to cloud servers. Cloud performs threat analysis and sends alerts to road users who are in risky situation. However, constant pedestrian-to-cloud (P2C) beaconing can quickly drain smartphone battery and make the system impractical. We employ adaptive multi-mode (AMM) approach built on situation-adaptive beaconing. AMM reduces power consumption using beacon rate control while it keeps the data freshness required for timely vehicle-to-pedestrian collision prediction. AMM runs on cloud servers and commands the mobile apps to change P2C beaconing frequency according to collision risk level from the surrounding vehicular traffic. Cityscale mobility simulation demonstrates energy efficiency of our approach. We evaluate battery lifetime according to geolocational variations over the city map. Results show that road-safety system imposes a small mean overhead on smartphone battery?s state-of-charge. Furthermore, our evaluation of computation and network load shows feasibility of running such road-safety systems on conventional cellular networks and cloud providers. We use server-side prototype experiment to estimate minimum cloud resources and cloud service costs needed to handle computation of city-scale geolocation data.

Performance standards of road safety management

Road safety management controlling means the process of finding out the information whether the road safety is improving in a measure to achieve the objectives. The process of control consists of three basic elements: definition of performances and standards, measurement of current performances and comparison with the set standards, and improvement of current performances, if they deviate from the set standards. The performance standards of road safety management system are focused on a performances measurement, in terms of their design and characteristics, in order to support the performances improvement of road safety system and thus, ultimately, improve the road safety. Defining the performance standards of road safety management system, except that determines the design of the system for performances measurement, directly sets requirements whose fulfillment will produce a road safety improvement. The road safety management system, based on the performance standards of road safety, with a focus on results, will produce the continuous improvement of road safety, achieving the long-term 'vision zero', the philosophy of road safety, that human life and health take priority over mobility and other traffic objectives of the road traffic.

Road Safety Barriers, the Need and Influence on Road Traffic Accidents

Constantly increasing intensity of road traffic and the allowed speed limits seem to impose stronger requirements on road infrastructure and use of road safety systems. One of the ways to improve road safety is the use of road restraint systems. Road safety barriers allow not only reducing the number of road traffic accidents, but also lowering the severity of accidents. The paper provides information on the technical requirements of road safety barriers. Various types of road safety barriers and their selection criteria for different types of road sections are discussed.The article views an example of a road traffic accident, which is also modelled by PC-Crash computer program. The given example reflects a road accident mechanism in case of a car-to-barrier collision, and provides information about the typical damage to the car and the barrier. The paper describes an impact of the road safety barrier type and its presence on the road traffic accident mechanism. Implementation and maintenance costs of different barrier types are viewed. The article presents a discussion on the necessity to use road safety barriers, as well as their optimal choice.

Benchmarking road safety performance by grouping local territories: A study in the Netherlands

The method of benchmarking provides an opportunity to learn from better performing territories to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of activities in a particular field of interest. Such a field of interest could be road safety. Road safety benchmarking can include several indicators, ranging from performance indicated by crash statistics, to indicators that also account for consequences in costs or the underlying state of the road safety system and relevant organisation and processes at actor level. The structure and culture of a territory is identified as a basic context of road safety performance. This is regarded as important information to use in grouping of territories to get more homogenous or equal and comparable conditions to learn from ‘the best in class’.The main aim of this study is to assess the usability of different groupings using the physical structure for benchmarking road safety performance at local territorial level. A traditional grouping of municipalities in the Netherlands was compared with a simple grouping of these municipalities based on their level of urbanisation and an advanced grouping in which more indicators such as differences in demography, growth and road structure were taken into account. As in other studies, urbanisation showed to be the most predominant structural factor for grouping local territories and related to differences in road safety performance. However, if information would be needed for specific target groups, other factors like age and gender distribution or the distribution of the road network can provide valuable additional insight and better homogenous starting points for benchmarking. Especially benchmarking of rural territories may profit from such extra distinctive characteristics.

A Video-Analysis-Based Railway–Road Safety System for Detecting Hazard Situations at Level Crossings

Safety and security are the most discussed topics in the road and railway transportation field. Latest security initiatives in the field of railway transportation propose to implement video surveillance at level crossing (LC) environments. In this paper we explore the possibility of implementing a smart video surveillance security system that is tuned toward detecting and evaluating abnormal situations induced by users (pedestrians, vehicle drivers, and unattended objects) in LCs. This intelligent security system starts by detecting, separating, and tracking moving objects shot in the LC. Then, a hidden Markov model is developed to estimate ideal trajectories, allowing the detected targets to discard dangerous situations. After that, the level of risk of each target is instantly estimated by using the Dempster-Shafer data fusion technique. The proposed analysis allows for also recognizing hazard scenarios. The video surveillance system is connected to a communication system (the Wireless Access for Vehicular Environment), which takes the information on the dynamic status of the LC (safe or presence of a dangerous situation) and sends it to users approaching the LC. Four hazard scenarios are tested and evaluated with different real video image sequences: presence of the obstacle in the LC, presence of the stopped vehicles line, vehicle zigzagging between two closed half barriers, and pedestrian crossing the LC area.

STUDIES ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INNOVATIVE ROAD SAFETY SYSTEM

The paper evaluates the effectiveness of the innovative road safety system equipped with prototype component segments composed of a body made of a plastic filled with reinforced concrete. Main advantages of the new safety barrier include increased resistance to corrosion as well as easy transport and assembly directly on a road section being secured. Model tests were performed on a car of 900 kg weight allowing for carrying out the TB11 tests according to the EN 1317-2 standard. LS-DYNA software was applied for modelling, using the finite element method. The work presents the numerical test results, trajectory of vehicle movement after collision as well as the concrete barrier displacement. It also includes examples of stress in steel bars and joint coupling. Detailed assessing of simulation test results were made on the basis of ASI, THIV and PHD index. They were calculated on the basis of velocity and acceleration courses of selected car bodywork points. Numerical test results confirm the fact that this system meets the normative requirements. They allow for qualifying that system for B impact severity level and W4 working width. The results presented in the paper make the initial stage of the study and further calculations will be oriented towards a possibility of meeting the requirements for higher restraint levels.

Urban Land Uses and Smart Mobility

The object of this work consists of the will to define a renewed relationship between spatial planning and transport systems, which focuses attention on road safety, whereas to date the studies on this relationship have mainly examined the transport impacts on land use. Therefore, in addition to the analysis of the physical characteristics of road infrastructure, there is a need to examine which urban land uses can generate points of risk, both in terms of attraction of vehicles and pedestrian flows as well as in terms of concentration of vulnerable road users, in order to organize a complete information and telecommunication system for road safety. In short, considering a specific testing ground, some urban land uses have been located, with relative dimensional analysis and characterization of access conditions in typological-functional terms: services (schools, healthcare structures, sports facilities); tertiary/production industry (wholesale, shopping centres, industrial sites); tourism sector (hotels, resorts, historical and cultural heritage). The collection of information, corresponding to mapping of prospective risk factors, represented the basis for the entry of specific data within a wider reference database.

Network Screening for Smarter Road Sites: A Regional Case

Road safety has been a main societal and policy issue in many European countries since the early years of last decade. After the 2000-2010 Road Safety Programme launched by the European Commission, in 2011 the Commission adopted the new 2020 programme, even more demanding than the previous. As the societal consequences of road casualties are increasingly perceived as a core dimension of smart mobility, road safety system is now facing new challenges. Current mobility shifts to softer and greener transportation means raise new safety concerns for an increasingly larger share of vulnerable road users. The need to integrate road safety requirements with other residential, mobility, and environmental policies calls for a more detailed understanding of the phenomenon at different spatial levels and with different observation lenses. The pilot study described in this paper is a contribution to this end. It aims at identifying the accident prone sites of the regional road network to help prioritizing safety interventions, by the regional administration having road planning responsibilities. The study develops a screening approach to select hazardous road locations, outside urban premises, from the Piedmont provincial and state roads. The most recent data for the 2010-2012 years were considered, drawn from the ISTAT road accident database, managed by the CMRSS. The procedure consists of the following steps: identification of the elementary road sections to be screened, through a GIS analysis; definition of the screening groups (road sections have been subdivided in 4 length classes); definition of the selection criteria, with two severity thresholds based on the crash density; classification of the elementary road sections by severity thresholds.

Performance Assessment Study of Road User Sensing Method by RSSI Combinations at Real Intersections

The authors have proposed a dedicated onboard “sensor” system utilizing wireless communication devices for surveillance of road users in terms of collision avoidance. The authors' “sensor” system estimates the positions of transmitters on road users by comparing the strengths of communications signals of ZigBee devices. According to the authors' experimental results, their system has competitiveness to the system utilizes time difference of arrival (TDOA) localization such as global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), at the point of robustness against multipaths in urban canyon. Moreover, their system thought to be capable of detecting road users in non line-of-sight area whom the vision sensors cannot observe. Therefore the system is promising as a composition element of a sensor fusion system for road safety, is the final target. In this work, the authors report about field operational experiments at real intersections. In experiments at real intersections, the authors tested the localization ability of their system and GNSS. The proposed system successfully detected the near pedestrians.

Underreporting of Road Crashes in Pakistan and the Role of Fate

Objective: Comprehensive, accurate information about road crashes and related trauma is a prerequisite for identification and control of risk factors as well as for identifying faults within the broader road safety system. Quality data and appropriate crash investigation are critical in reducing the road toll that is rapidly growing in much of the developing world, including Pakistan. This qualitative research explored the involvement of social and cultural factors (in particular, fatalism) in risky road use in Pakistan. The findings highlight a significant issue, previously unreported in the road safety literature, namely, the link between fatalistic beliefs and inaccurate reporting of road crashes. Method: Thirty interviews (one-on-one) were conducted by the first author with police officers, drivers, policy makers, and religious orators in 3 Pakistani cities. Findings: Evidence emerged of a strong link between fatalism and the underreporting of road crashes. In many cases, crashes and related road trauma appear to go unreported because a crash is considered to be one's fate and, therefore, beyond personal control. Fate was also implicated in the practice of reconciliation between parties after a crash without police involvement and the seeking and granting of pardon for a road death. Conclusions: These issues represent additional factors that can contribute to underreporting of crashes and associated trauma. Together, they highlight complications involved in establishing the true cost of road trauma in a country such as Pakistan and the difficulties faced when attempting to promote scientifically based road safety information to counteract faith-based beliefs.

Deployment of intelligent transport systems for road safety — possibilities of the introduction of the EU wide emergency call system in the light of European trends

The real challenge for the Member States of the EU is to handle the growing demand in the area of road transport together with the decrease of harmful effects of road transport — reducing road transport casualties and congestions and also environmental effects. The paper shows the EU objectives related to road safety, the eSafety initiative aiming to reduce the number of accidents on Europe’s roads by using advanced information and communication technologies and the in-vehicle eCall emergency call service, which makes it possible that in case of emergency an emergency call can be initiated. Moreover the so-called harmonized eCall European pilot project is also presented, which is granted by the European Commission to support the European implementation of eCall.

Editorial on Impacts on Traffic Safety

Traffic Safety has been internationally recognized as a primary strategic goal in many societies. Traffic safety concept is not limited to the reduction of road accidents issue. It aims to initiate/create the right road safety behavior by setting all necessary educational, engineering and medical programs and plans, traffic regulations, and preventive measures. This would reduce or prevent accidents, ensure human and properties' safety, and preserve the human and economic wealth of the nation. Traffic safety issue should be considered as a national issue as it is strongly related to all aspects of life and has a close link with the protection and sustaining the natural environment. Road accidents are one of the most serious issues facing developed and developing countries. A report published in 2009 by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that some 1.2 million people were killed, and between 20 and 50 million suffer non-fatal injuries in traffic collisions on the roads around the world each year. The report illustrated that these collisions were the leading cause of death among children between 10 and 19 years of age. It also noted that the problem was most severe in developing countries [ 1 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) anticipates road accidents to be the third cause of death among the fifteen causes of death in 2020 [ 2 ]. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, rates of road accidents on the road networks have increased dramatically. It has become a phenomenon affecting negatively all sectors of the society. It causes human suffering to individuals, and huge financial losses to the state and public as a result of accidents and deaths, injuries and disabilities. More than 6,000 people die and 35,000 people get injured every year, and the economic losses exceed 13 billion Riyals annually. Therefore, the concerted efforts of the society and the governmental and private organizations are necessary to improve road safety system, reduce the number of, and minimize fatalities and injuries [ 3 ]. The aim of this special issue is to present a number of Saudi and international experiences concerning traffic safety issue. Through this special issue, we aim to collect multidisciplinary research outcomes that address the relation between traffic safety and various factors that impact safety such as: road networks' engineering, management and control of the traffic system, planning and strategies, transportation systems, citizens' education, knowledge and behavior. The authors in this special issue have suggested a number of solutions to improve traffic safety and reduce fatalities. Altwaijri, Quddus and Bristow emphasized the importance of adopting safety strategies that consider various segments of the society. They suggested that greater emphasis should be put on native (i.e. Saudis) residents; and further emphasis on older age groups [ 4 ]. Ali and Tayfour recommended the implementation of efficient speed control, mandatory use of safety belts, proper training of drivers, and rigorous licensing. Also, driver behavior should be controlled and pedestrian crossing should be carefully planned and implemented [ 5 ]. Reffat argued that the use of an intelligent real-time virtual environment system would help in improving crowd management and facilitating efficient and timely vehicle traffic movement [ 6 ]. Elhamy advocated the reduction of the speed limit of roads, the improvement of pedestrian access and mobility, monitoring the compliance with traffic law. This could help reduce potential behavior that leads to crashes [ 7 ]. Ebrahim and Nikraz highlighted the importance of knowing how road users think in terms of speed reduction. This would lead to in-depth understanding of some of the unsafe behaviour that relates to risky speed against pedestrians. It is essential to educate expatriates about the benefit of adopting a lower speed limit thus avoiding possible crashes [ 8 ]. Finally, the guest editors of this special issue would like to thank the chief editors of the International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology for giving them a chance to publish these papers through the journal.

Measures on the Impact-Spread of Road Accidents

Road safety system has been a concern topic for many scholars worldwide. Although there are many analysis papers on road traffic accident prevention, security, emergency rescue, safety evaluation and other aspects, there is no a thorough and complete opinion on road safety system. The study of these issues can cause a traffic accident prevention, to reduce the incidence of traffic accidents, summing up the spread of some of the impact of traffic on the control of the effective ways to combat the public security organs to reduce the incidence of traffic accidents guidance.

Road Safety in Greece

The objective of this research is the analysis of road safety in Greece. For that purpose, the SUNflower footprint methodology is used, in which a country's road safety level is analysed hierarchically in relation to all components of the road safety system, from structure and culture elements, to the existing programmes and measures, to the performance indicators reflecting the current road safety operational level, to the number of outcomes (i.e. road accidents and casualties) resulting from this road safety level and to the eventual social costs. A wealth of data is gathered and analysed in this framework, including data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority and other national data sources, as well as from various international data files (CARE, ERSO, Eurostat, IRTAD, etc.) and research projects (e.g. SARTRE). The analysis confirmed that Greece is one of the worst performing countries in the European Union in terms of road safety. The yearly social costs of road accidents are estimated to 4 billion Euros. Moreover, Greece is characterised by increased traffic of motorcycles and pedestrians, which is associated with a considerable proportion of total fatalities, summing up to 42%. Greek drivers present aggressive and risk-taking behavior, as well as low compliance to traffic rules. Nevertheless, fatalities have decreased over time, namely by 37% compared to the century start, due to a significant increase of road safety enforcement, a new and stricter Road Code, as well as a large programme of motorway development during the last decade. Finally, the (until recently) lack of a central authority in charge of road safety results in limited efficiency of the implementation of quite a few road safety programmes and measures foreseen at the national strategic plans of the last decade.

Evaluation of the effect of cooperative infrastructure-to-vehicle systems on driver behavior

In-vehicle technologies and co-operative services have potential to ease congestion problems and improve traffic safety. This paper investigates the impact of infrastructure-to-vehicle co-operative systems, case of CO-OPerative SystEms for Intelligent Road Safety (COOPERS), on driver behavior. Thirty-five test drivers drove an instrumented vehicle, twice, with and without the system. Data related to driving behavior, physiological measurements, and user acceptance was collected. A macro-level approach was used to evaluate the potential impact of such systems on driver behavior and traffic safety. The results in terms of speeds, following gaps, and physiological measurements indicate a positive impact. Furthermore, drivers’ opinions show that the system is in general acceptable and useful.

AHP to Appraise the Traffic Safety of the Express Way

The internal structure of the road safety system is extremely complex and it is affected by a lot of factors, each factor weights can not be fully established. In this article, we expressed the attribute value with a fuzzy interval number, the comprehensive appraise to the impact of traffic safety with emphasis on "people", "car" "road" in the "road". First of all, establishing evaluation index system, and form the judging matrix by AHP; then, it can be acquired a method of traffic safety evaluation by using the comprehensive evaluation model of the fuzzy interval.

Beyond “best practice” road safety thinking and systems management – A case for culture change research

Forecasts of an “explosion” in the level of road trauma as many of the world’s most populous nations rapidly motorise have contributed to the urgency of documenting best practice thinking and management systems to improve road safety performance. By examining the success stories of nations with either the lowest fatailty rates per head of population or with the largest recent improvements a number of “lessons” have emerged. Data-driven problem identification and the development of evidence-driven countermeasure packages formalised in a strategy for effective implementation, with ambitious, quantitative targets and transparent lines of institutional accountability are the critical success factors. Basing this planning upon the cornerstones of the safe system conceptual model constitutes best practice thinking. This paper argues that critical elements of the safe system model are in discord with behavioural mores in the cultures of many western motorised nations and that this hampers the adoption of the most effective safety programs within key institutions and within political systems. A case is made for a systematic examination of car use and safety cultures in order to add a further dimension to best practice learnings.

Methodological approach and road safety system evaluation

Car drivers receive the acceleration stimulation and the rotational stimulation when negotiating with a curve. In such a situation, the driver controls his/her posture such as the head and the body appropriately. It is known that the driver tilts his/her head toward the curve direction while the passengers’ head movement is likely to occur in the opposite direction. There are some interpretations of the role of the driver's active head movement such as increasing visibility and decreasing of effect of the inertial force to the body including the trunk and the neck. The goals of this research are to understand relationship between head tilt strategy and motion sickness incidence and apply its result to the design of comfortable vehicle motion. First, we derive a mathematical model of the motion sickness incidence caused by the head movement in 3D space based on subjective vertical conflict. Then, we analyze effect of the head movement on decrease of motion sickness incidence using the mathematical model.

Basal ganglia functions underlie both motor and cognitive agility

The intractable global road safety problem of the overrepresentation of young drivers in road crashes, despite a plethora of intervention, suggests that innovative approaches to understanding – and thus intervening in – road crash risks is required. The current research recognises that young drivers frequently are adolescents, and that adolescence is characterised by rapid physical, psychological, cognitive, and social development, each of which interacts with, contributes to, and is impacted upon by a wealth of negative, neutral and positive moods and emotions. The literature regarding relevant to adolescent drivers and emotions between 1 January 2005 and 30 September 2015 will be synthesise, in addition to posing future research questions regarding adolescents, emotions, and driving behaviour.One hundred and three peer-reviewed articles were identified, and these were summarised within emotions and the adolescent (44 papers); emotions, the adolescent, and driving risks (23 papers); emotions, the adolescent, and risky driving behaviour (30 papers); and emotions, the adolescent, and road safety interventions (6 papers). The findings were synthesised within the context of the characteristics of the adolescent driver, their emotions, the driving context and their driving behaviour, including a pictorial representation of two temporal models depicting the sequence via which emotions can impact upon adolescent driving behaviour (Path A in which the adolescent driver experiences emotions after entering the car; Path B in which the adolescent experiences emotions before entering the car).The relatively recent proliferation of literature pertaining to adolescents, emotions, and their driving behaviour suggests that the breadth of research questions posed in relation to the domains of the adolescent driver, their emotions, the driving context, and their driving behaviour are timely. Indeed, recent applications of systems thinking within road safety, including young driver road safety specifically, maintain that a holistic approach to the understanding of who plays what role in this system that currently contributes to crash risks, and conversely can play a role in effective and efficient intervention, is essential before the real world realisation of a safe road system. Addressing these research questions are fundamental to sustaining progress on the path to young driver road crash prevention through a safe young driver road safety system.