Safety Impacts of Highway Shoulder Attributes in Illinois

Radhika Bamzai; Yongdoo Lee; Zongzhi Li

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/45840 Copy

Description

Title

Safety Impacts of Highway Shoulder Attributes in Illinois

Author(s)

• Radhika Bamzai
• Yongdoo Lee
• Zongzhi Li

Issue Date

2011-04

Keyword(s)

Highway, shoulder, paving, shoulder, safety, crash

Abstract

The single greatest category of highway vehicle crashes is run-off-the-road incidents. Significant material differences and elevation changes in shoulder edges pose a potential safety hazard when a vehicle leaves the travel way. Shoulder paving is recognized as a positive countermeasure to reduce a shoulder drop-off hazard. This report documents an in-depth analysis of safety impacts of shoulder attributes using data on Illinois statemaintained highways for period 2000-2006. Preliminary data analysis is first conducted to establish the correlation between shoulder-related crashes by type and severity category and shoulder attributes such as shoulder material type and outside paved shoulder width. Then, an analytical procedure is developed and applied to the Illinois data for assessing safety impacts of shoulder paving and prioritizing highway segments for shoulder paving using the Empirical Bayesian (EB) analysis and cross-sectional analysis approaches and an optimization model. While this procedure does not eliminate the need for human judgment, it could help experts make better decisions using optimization techniques. The findings are expected to help Illinois Department of Transportation (DOT) update current design manuals.

Series/Report Name or Number

FHWA-ICT-11-078

ISSN

0197-9191

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/45840

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

Illinois Department of Transportation ICT R27-40

Copyright and License Information

No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161

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