The Effect of Vehicle Mix on Crash Frequency and Crash Severity

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Highway Safety Manual (HSM) has become a key safety management and evaluation toolbox for state and local highway agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, planning, safety, design, and operations communities. Current HSM tools include predictive methods for a wide variety of highway facility types and site conditions. The current methods account for traffic volumes and other roadway characteristics but not for vehicle mix or distribution of vehicle types. Recent studies suggest that truck traffic adversely impacts roadway safety performance. These studies indicate that the consideration of vehicle mix would improve predictive methods for crash frequency and severity. Improved methods will result in better use of the limited funds and resources available for improving the safety of the highway system and support performance-based approaches. The objectives of this research are to (1) develop and validate a statistically valid predictive methodology to quantify the effect of vehicle mix on crash frequency and severity for various facility types; and (2) develop a spreadsheet tool for practitioners to quantify the effect of vehicle mix on safety performance across the range of highway activities including planning, design, operations, and safety management.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4781

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $400000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 22-49

• Sponsor Organizations:

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Crichton-Sumners, Camille

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Central Florida

  P.O. Box 25000
  Orlando, FL  United States  32816
• Principal Investigators:

  Eluru, Naveen

• Start Date: 20200903
• Expected Completion Date: 20230303
• Actual Completion Date: 20230303

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash rates; Crash severity; Estimating; Highway safety; Methodology; Statistical analysis; Vehicle mix
• Identifier Terms: Highway Safety Manual
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01707535
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 22-49
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 5 2019 12:50PM