Develop a Real-Time Decision Support Tool for Rural Roadway Safety Improvements

Roadway departure and speeding related crashes are the dominant types of crashes on rural roadways. As a result, the Texas Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) has identified them as two of the seven research emphasis areas for 2017-2022. Conventional crash risk analysis typically omits real-time speed, real-time volume, and weather data, significantly limiting safety predictive methods. To mitigate this research gap, the following three national databases can be combined: (1) National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS) with passenger and freight travel time data sets for the National Highway System (NHS) and other roadways; (2) Travel Monitoring Analysis System (TMAS) data with traffic volume data through both temporary traffic counting and continuous traffic counting programs; and (3) Real-time weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rural traffic crashes account for a disproportionate number of fatalities in comparison to urban crashes. In 2017, 53 percent of Texas crash fatalities occurred on rural roadways. Further research is necessary to reduce rural roadway crashes and allocate resources for rural roadway safety improvements, particularly research focusing on the SHSP areas of emphasis, including roadway departure and speeding-related crashes. The findings of such research should be integrated into Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT’s) future vision plans. To achieve the project goals, the research team will leverage ongoing staff leadership and engagement with research from both the Rural Speed Safety Project for USDOT Safety Data Initiative (SDI) as well as the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP 17-76). This research will provide updated safety performance functions for rural roadways and a decision support tool for exploring crash risk at both segment and segment-temporal levels.

• Record URL:
  https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/Presto/project=0-7051

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $300000
• Contract Numbers:

  0-7051

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483
• Project Managers:

  Pridgen, Shelley

• Performing Organizations:

  Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI)

  400 Harvey Mitchell Parkway South
  Suite 300
  College Station, TX  United States  77845-4375
• Principal Investigators:

  Das, Subasish

• Start Date: 20191203
• Expected Completion Date: 20220131
• Actual Completion Date: 20220131
• Source Data: TxDOT Research Library

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash causes; Crash risk forecasting; Data analysis; Ran off road crashes; Rural highways; Speed
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01744077
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Texas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: 0-7051
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jun 25 2020 12:01PM