Measuring Intersection Safety

This project proposes to measure the time when every vehicle enters an intersection, together with its speed and the signal phase. These data will be analyzed to score how unsafe the vehicle's entrance to the intersection is, e.g. score is 0 if the vehicle enters during green below the speed limit, or 1 if the vehicle enters during amber or red or faster than the speed limit. An aggregation of the score will create an intersection safety index (ISI). Changes in ISI over time will be correlated with traffic conditions and with the intersection signal control plan, to tease out the impact of the latter on ISI. There are two tasks. The first is to design modifications to 170 controllers to extract signal phase and time-synchronize it with the detector measurements of each vehicle's speed. The second task is to collect and analyze data at several intersections. The ISI technique differs from the three approaches to intersection safety: the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) intersection design guidelines based on an assessment of crash statistics; the Traffic Conflict Technique (TCT) using trained observers to watch an intersection and assess the occurrence of near-accident events; and RITA/CICAS initiative to assist drivers to improve safety.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $83699.00
• Contract Numbers:

  15833JEVA1

• Sponsor Organizations:

  California Department of Transportation

  1227 O Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95843

  Department of Transportation

  Research and Special Programs Administration
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC    20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of California Transportation Center (UCTC)

  University of California, Berkeley
  2614 Dwight Way, 2nd Floor
  Berkeley, CA  United States  94720-1782

  University of California, Berkeley

  Transportation Center
  2614 Dwight Way, 2nd Floor
  Berkely, CA  United States  94720-1782
• Principal Investigators:

  Varaiya, Pravin

• Start Date: 20100801
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• Source Data: RiP Project 28002

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Intersections; Traffic conflicts; Traffic safety; Traffic signal control systems; Traffic speed
• Identifier Terms: Intersection Safety Index (ISI)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Traffic conditions
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01463718
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University of California Transportation Center (UCTC)
• Contract Numbers: 15833JEVA1
• Files: UTC, RIP, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 2:29PM