Safety Impacts of Design Element Trade-Offs

Design standards provide a benchmark for the development of elements that compose a highway design. Ideally, every highway design would meet the appropriate standards. Realistically, designers are sometimes faced with situations where adherence to standards may not be practical from an engineering, environmental, community, or benefit-cost perspective. In such cases, designers must make decisions regarding the impacts and risks associated with meeting or exceeding the design standards or allowing exceptions to them, for example, in context-sensitive situations. A comprehensive assessment of the safety and operational impacts of trade-offs in design elements is needed to guide designers in weighing appropriate trade-offs in design elements against safety and operational concerns for the full range of highway designs, from low volume to high volume, locals to arterials, and 3-R to new construction. The objectives of this project are to (1) quantify the safety and operational impacts of design element trade-offs and their associated risks and (2) develop guidelines to assist designers in making reasonable choices among possible design element trade-offs. The project shall evaluate design element trade-offs encompassing the full range of highway designs, including context-sensitive solutions and common design exceptions.

• Record URL:
  http://www.trb.org/TRBNet/ProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=407

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $449987.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 15-27

• Sponsor Organizations:

  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

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Harrigan, Edward

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Kentucky, Lexington

  Kentucky Transportation Center
  College of Engineering, 176 Raymond Building
  Lexington, KY  United States  40506-0281
• Principal Investigators:

  Stamatiadis, Nikiforos

• Start Date: 20040713
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20090131
• Source Data: RiP Project 9002

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Context sensitive design; Design; Highway design; Operations; Research projects; Safety
• Identifier Terms: National Cooperative Highway Research Program
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01463115
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National Cooperative Highway Research Program
• Contract Numbers: Project 15-27
• Files: RIP, USDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 2:17PM