Road User Behavior

A Review of ITS-Based Pedestrian Injury Countermeasures

Bechtel, Allyson K.
Geyer, Judy A.
Ragland, David R.
2003

Crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians caused at least 4,882 deaths and about 78,000 injuries in 2001 in the United States. In recognition of these troubling statistics, many public and private institutions look to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies. Few resources are available to provide a comprehensive summary of the effectiveness of these options. This report reviews previous scientific evaluation of red light enforcement cameras, illuminated walk signal push buttons, automated pedestrian detection systems for traffic signals, flashing crosswalk lights,...

Oakland Chinatown Pedestrian Scramble: An Evaluation

Bechtel, Allyson K.
MacLeod, Kara E.
Ragland, David R.
2003

In 2002, the City of Oakland, California implemented a scramble signal, at the intersection of 8th Street and Webster Street. Scrambles are a type of traffic signal that give pedestrians exclusive access to an intersection by stopping vehicular traffic on all approaches, allowing pedestrians to cross diagonally or conventionally. The primary objective of this evaluation was to determine whether the installation of the pedestrian scramble at this location increased pedestrian safety. An analysis was conducted of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts and pedestrian violations occurring at the...

Collaboration Math: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Multidisciplinary Collaboration

Cohen, Larry
Aboelata, Mana
Gantz, Toni
Van Wert, Jennifer
2003

Reducing the toll of traffic-related injuries requires a concerted effort, calling on the resources, commitment and expertise of diverse agencies, professionals and community members.1,2 Traffic safety is affected by numerous aspects of community life such as how neighborhoods are designed, how fast cars travel and how safe people feel walking or driving to key destinations.

Preventing traffic-related injury is a responsibility shared by many. As evidenced by many federal, state and local efforts, partnerships, coalitions and networks have become common ways to address the incidence...

Rural Road Links: A Review on Current Research Projects & Initiatives Aimed at Reducing Vehicle Crash Fatalities on Rural Roads

Quiros, Lesliam
Shaver, Barrett
2003

Rural America accounts for a smaller and more dispersed portion of the nation’s population, yet it comprises a considerable portion of the transportation system. Rural areas account for approximately 83 percent of the land in the U.S and their roads account for 80 percent of the total U.S. road mileage and 40 percent of the vehicle miles traveled. Fatalities on rural roads surpass those in urban areas, even though urban areas are more densely populated and consequently, have a higher traffic flow. In 2001 alone, fatal crashes on rural areas accounted for 61 percent of all traffic...

Intersection Decision Support Project: Taxonomy of Crossing-Path Crashes at Intersections Using GES 2000 Data

Ragland, David R.
Zabyshny, Aleksandr
2003

The Intersection Decision Support (IDS) Project is designed to reduce crossing-path (CP) crashes at intersections by providing crucial information to drivers that would help them avoid such crashes. Over the past decade, researchers have used the General Estimates System (GES, a representative sample of police-reported crashes in the US) and other data sources to develop a taxonomy of CP crashes and pre-crash scenarios as groundwork for crash-prevention efforts. The current study builds on and extends prior work by constructing a taxonomy of CP crashes using data from the 2000 GES and...

Safety and Other Impacts of Vehicle Impound Enforcement

Cooper, Douglas L.
Chira-Chavala, T.
Gillen, David
2000

This study was conducted by a team of researchers at the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Berkeley, with funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety. Ted Chira-Chavala directed the study, coordinated the write-up of the final report, and wrote many chapters. Douglas Cooper was the key researcher, who performed the literature review, worked with key personnel of Upland Police Department to acquire essential data for the evaluation, analyzed the data, and contributed significantly to all chapters. David Gillen performed all time-series analyses and...

The Effects of Transportation Corridors' Roadside Design Features on User Behavior and Safety, and Their Contributions to Health, Enviornmental Quality, and Community Economic Vitality: a Literature Review

Macdonald, Elizabeth
Sanders, Rebecca
Supawanich, Paul
2008

A transportation corridor communicates many things to its users through its design elements. What it communicates can affect the travel mode a user decides to take, the speed at which a motorist decides to drive, whether a pedestrian will walk along or across a street, and whether a resident will bicycle to local shops. Design elements give visual cues to the users of transportation corridors that let them know where they are and how to behave. The vehicle lane widths, presence or absence of sidewalks, and presence or absence of buffering elements such as street trees and parked cars all...

A Comparative Safety Study of Limited versus Continuous Access High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Facilities

Jang, Kitae
Ragland, David R.
Chan, Ching-Yao
2009
The report summarizes the findings from comparative studies of safety performance between two different types of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) facilities in California - continuous access versus limited access. The findings show that HOV facilities with limited access offer no safety advantages over those with continuous access, whether measured by percentage of collisions, collisions per mile, collisions per VMT, or collision severity. As part of the present research, the authors investigated the relationship...

The Continuous Risk Profile Approach for the Identification of High Collision Concentration Locations on Congested Highways

Chung, Koohong
Ragland, David R.
Madanat, Samer
Oh, Soon Mi
2009

This paper documents a new method for monitoring traffic collision data from continuous roadway facilities to detect high collision concentration locations. Many existing methods for detecting collision concentration locations require segmentation of roadways and assume traffic collision data are spatially uncorrelated, resulting in both false positives (i.e., identifying sites for safety improvements that should not have been selected) and false negatives (i.e., not identifying sites that should have been selected). The proposed method does not require segmentation of roadways;...

Evaluation of Traffic and Environment Effects on Skid Resistance and Safety Performance of Rubberized Open-grade Asphalt Concrete

Oh, Soon Mi
Ragland, David R.
Chan, Ching-Yao
2010

Wet pavement-related collisions represent a significant traffic safety concern, due in part to the lack of adequate friction between tire and pavement, known as skid resistance. State agencies employ a skid number (SN) system, based on a standard test procedure in which a locked wheel is towed at 40 mph and the skid number (SN40) is calculated from the measured resistance. SN40 is used as a reference value for speeds both greater than and less than 40 mph. For most Departments of Transportation (DOTs) in the nation, excluding California, pavements for which the SN40 is below 30 are deemed...