Quantifying the Safety Impacts of Intelligent Transportation Systems

Alexis A. Avgoustis

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

Master of Science

in

Civil Engineering

Michel Van Aerde, Ph.D., Chair

Hesham A. Rakha, Ph.D.
Wei H. Lin, Ph.D.

May 25, 1999

Blacksburg, Virginia

Keywords: Accident databases, safety models, accident rates, signal coordination, ITS
Copyright 1999, Alexis A. Avgoustis
 Quantifying the Safety Impacts of Intelligent Transportation Systems
Alexis A. Avgoustis

(ABSTRACT)

An average of 6.5 million crashes are reported to the police every year in the United
States. Safety is significantly important considering the rapid increase on traffic volume
on American roads. This thesis describes the development of a safety model whose
primary objective is to capture the benefits of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) on
safety. The specific ITS component that is examined in more detail is traffic signal
coordination. The model was tested in a micro-simulation environment using
INTEGRATION traffic simulation model as well as in a field data evaluation.

The General Estimates System (GES) database was chosen as the primary national
database to extract accident data. These data were used for the development of the
statistical foundation for the safety model. Crash rates were produced using extracted
crash frequencies and annual vehicle miles traveled figures from the Highway Statistics
(FHWA, 1997). Regression analysis was performed to predict the behavior of several
crash types, as they were associated with a variety of variables, for example the facility
speed limit and time the crash occurred.

The model was developed in FORTRAN code that estimates the accident risk of a facility
based on its free-speed. Two methods were used to test the model: 1. field data from the
city of Phoenix, Arizona were used in a GPS (Global Positioning Systems) floating car
that tracked the accident risk on a second by second basis. Before and after signal
coordination scenarios were tested thus yielding a result that the accident risk is less in
the after scenario. 2. the model was then tested in a micro-simulation environment using
the INTEGRATION traffic model. A hypothetical network, as well as the
Scottsdale/Rural road corridor in Phoenix were used. The sensitivity analysis of before
and after signal coordination scenarios indicated that after the signals were coordinated,
the crash risk was lower, thus proving that the model could capture the benefits of this
ITS component. Reducing the number of crashes is an important aspect of improving
safety. Traffic signal coordination smoothens traffic on a facility and reduces its potential
accident risk by producing less vehicle-to vehicle interactions. Also, traffic signal control
increases the free-speed of a facility. The advantage of this safety model is the fact that it
can be used to capture a variety of ITS technologies and not only signal coordination that
is examined in more detail in this thesis.
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of
my mother Lilia Avgousti

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincere appreciation goes to my academic advisor, Dr. Michel Van Aerde. His
guidance and inspiration have provided an invaluable experience during my entire
graduate program. I am also indebted to him for providing financial support through the
Center for Transportation Research (CTR) at Virginia Tech and for the numerous
opportunities he has presented me with.

I have also been honored to have Dr. Hesham Rakha and Dr. Wei Lin as members of my
committee. I extend my appreciation to Dr. Rakha for his continuous support,
professional guidance and for helping me realize my career objectives.
I also want to express my appreciation to Dr. Per Grder from the University of Maine
who inspired me to become a transportation engineer.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my father Andreas for supporting me

throughout my studies and for being a great father. Also, I extend my thanks to my sister
Maria for her continuous support and guidance during my graduate studies.

Thanks also go to my fellow graduate students at the Transportation Infrastructure and

Systems Engineering Department and the staff of the Center for Transportation Research
(CTR) at Virginia Tech. Special thanks go to Alejandra Medina and Vanessa Hall for
their valuable help during my research assistantship at the CTR.

Finally, I would like to thank my numerous friends who helped me throughout this
academic exploration. I wish to acknowledge the support and encouragement of my
friends, Andreas Philaretou, Louis Tsiakkiros, Marianna Constantinidou, Varnavas
Constantinou and Emilio Casteleijn.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Sharon for her unconditional love and support
during the last four years. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without her
continuous love and encouragement.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................iv
Table of Contents ......................................................................................................v
List of Figures............................................................................................................ix
List of Tables .............................................................................................................x
Chapter 1 Introduction .........................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................1
1.2 Background..........................................................................................................3
1.3 Objectives of the thesis........................................................................................3
1.4 Thesis Organization.............................................................................................4
Chapter 2 Literature Review................................................................................5
2.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................5
2.2 Accident Statistic Databases ...............................................................................5
2.2.1 General Estimates System ....................................................................6
2.2.2 Fatality Analysis Reporting System .....................................................7
2.2.3 Highway Safety Information System ...................................................8
2.2.4 Crashworthiness Data System ..............................................................10
2.2.5 State Data System.................................................................................11
2.3 Highway Statistics ...............................................................................................11
2.4 Development of accident rates ............................................................................12
2.5 Accident prediction models .................................................................................13
2.6 Summary of Literature Review ...........................................................................16
Chapter 3 Sources of Data and Highway Statistics............................................18
3.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................18
3.2 National Transportation Statistics .......................................................................19
3.2.1 The existing transportation network in the United States ....................19
3.2.2 Facility types ........................................................................................19
3.2.3 Urban Vs. Rural....................................................................................20
3.2.4 Roadway Mileage .................................................................................21
3.2.5 Vehicle Miles Traveled ........................................................................22

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3.3 National Accident Statistics ................................................................................24
3.3.1 Police Reported Accidents-Trends .......................................................25
3.3.2 Fatal Crashes in 1996 ...........................................................................26
3.3.3 Crashes by Manner of Collision in 1996..............................................27
3.3.4 Crashes by Accident Type in 1996.......................................................28
3.3.5 Crashes by Speed Limit in 1996...........................................................30
3.3.6 Crashes by Time of Day .......................................................................31
3.4 Hour Vs. Speed Limit..........................................................................................31
3.5 Summary..............................................................................................................32
Chapter 4 Extraction of Data from the GES Database......................................34
4.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................34
4.2 The GES Database as a Useful Tool ...................................................................34
4.2.1 GES Estimation Methods .....................................................................35
4.2.2 Reliability of Estimates ........................................................................36
4.2.3 Extraction Procedures and SAS Datasets .............................................36
4.3 GES Variables .....................................................................................................37
4.3.1 First Harmful Event and Manner of Collision......................................38
4.3.2 Speed limit and Time of Day................................................................39
4.3.3 Accident Severity .................................................................................40
4.3.4 Accident Type.......................................................................................41
4.3.5 Rear-End Accident Types.....................................................................42
4.4 Development of the Accident Rates ....................................................................43
4.4.1 Crash Rates by Time of Day.................................................................44
4.4.2 Crash Rates by Time of Day and Accident Type .................................45
4.4.3 Crash Rates for Injury Severity Accidents by speed limit/ acc. Type..46
4.4.4 Crash Rates for Damage Severity Accidents by speed limit/acc.Type 47
4.5 Rear-End Crashes-Case Study.............................................................................47
4.6 Summary..............................................................................................................51
Chapter 5 Safety Model Description and Sensitivity Analysis..........................52
5.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................52
5.2 Safety Model Input ..............................................................................................52

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 5.2.1 Model Input- Damage Severity Crashes................................................53
5.2.2 Model Input- Injury Severity Crashes ...................................................54
5.2.3 Model Input- Raw Crash Rates .............................................................55
5.3 Safety Model Implementation .............................................................................57
5.3.1 Subroutine Acc_Rat...............................................................................58
5.3.2 Subroutine Acc_Dam ............................................................................59
5.3.3 Subroutine Acc_Inj................................................................................60
5.4 Sensitivity Analysis .............................................................................................61
5.4.1 Micro-Simulation Evaluation ................................................................61
5.4.2 Metropolitan Model Deployment Initiative...........................................63
5.4.3 Phoenix Signal Coordination.................................................................64
5.4.4 Scottsdale/Rural Road ...........................................................................64
5.4.5 Simulation of the Scottsdale/Rural Road ..............................................65
5.5 Field Data Evaluation ..........................................................................................66
5.5.1 Global Positioning Systems Floating Cars ...........................................66
5.5.2 Speed Changes- Floating Cars..............................................................71
5.6 Analysis of the Safety Impacts of Signal Coordination in Phoenix ....................71
5.6.1 Description of the study.........................................................................72
5.6.2 Methodology used to compute the crash rates.......................................72
5.6.3 Results of the study................................................................................73
5.6.4 Comparison of the GPS floating car results and the AZ Database........74
5.7 Summary..............................................................................................................74
Chapter 6 Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................76
6.1 Summary of the thesis .........................................................................................76
6.2 Results .................................................................................................................76
6.3 Limitations and Database drawbacks ..................................................................78
6.4 Further Research..................................................................................................79

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References.................................................................................................................81
Appendix A...............................................................................................................84
Appendix B...............................................................................................................92
Appendix C...............................................................................................................112
Vita............................................................................................................................135

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 List of Figures
Figure 2-1 National Accident Databases ...................................................................6
Figure 3-1 Vehicle Miles Traveled, 1960-1996 ........................................................23
Figure 3-2 Police Reported Accidents for 1988-96 ..................................................25
Figure 3-3 Number of Fatalities per Time of Day in 1996........................................27
Figure 3-4 Crashes by Manner of Collision in 1996 .................................................28
Figure 3-5 Police Reported Accidents-Distribution by Accident Type ....................29
Figure 3-6 Distribution of Crashes by speed limit in 1996 .......................................30
Figure 3-7 Crashes by Time of Day in 1996 .............................................................31
Figure 3-8 Crashes per Speed Limit in 1996.............................................................32
Figure 4-1 GES/SAS Extraction Procedure ..............................................................37
Figure 4-2 Rear-End Accident Types........................................................................42
Figure 4-3 Distribution of the Accident Rates per Time of Day...............................45
Figure 4-4 Scottsdale/Rural Tube Counts .................................................................48
Figure 4-5 Rear-End Crashes-45 mph.......................................................................49
Figure 4-6 Rear-End Crash Rates-45 mph ................................................................50
Figure 4-7 Rear-End Crash Rate as a Function of Volume.......................................50
Figure 5-1 Damage Probability per Crash Type........................................................53
Figure 5-2 Probability of Damage Level per Crash by Speed Limit.........................54
Figure 5-3 Model Input-Raw Crash Rates.................................................................55
Figure 5-4 Raw Accident Rate Data by Accident Type and Speed Limit.................55
Figure 5-5 Accidents per Million VMT for speed limits 20-70 mph ........................56
Figure 5-6 R2 versus crash type.................................................................................57
Figure 5-7 Flowchart of FORTRAN Code................................................................58
Figure 5-8 Sample Network ......................................................................................62
Figure 5-9 Sample Network Output Results .............................................................63
Figure 5-10 Screen Capture of INTEGRATION (Scottsdale/Rural road) ................65
Figure 5-11 Phoenix Traffic Corridors- Scottsdale/Rural road .................................68

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 List of Tables
Table 2-1 HSIS Quantity of Data Available..............................................................10
Table 2-2 Accident Categories (Kulmala, 1995).......................................................15
Table 3-1 Public Road Length in 1996......................................................................21
Table 3-2 Grouped Results for road mileage in 1996 ...............................................21
Table 3-3 Vehicle Miles Traveled by Functional Highway Class, 1980-1996 .........22
Table 3-4 Vehicle Miles Traveled in 1996................................................................24
Table 3-5 Grouped Results for Vehicle Miles Traveled in 1996 ..............................24
Table 3-6 Crashes by Crash Severity, 1988-1996 .....................................................26
Table 4-1 Facility Types and Corresponding Speed Limits ......................................40
Table 4-2 Crash Types as an Input to the Model.......................................................44
Table 4-3 Crash Rates by Accident Type and Speed limit........................................46
Table 5-1 Scottsdale/Rural Road Characteristics ......................................................64
Table 5-2 Number of Trips of GPS Floating Cars on Scottsdale/Rural Road...........67
Table 5-3 GPS Floating Car: Crash Risk for all crashes ...........................................69
Table 5-4 GPS Floating Car: Injury Crash Risk........................................................69
Table 5-5 GPS Floating Car: Fatal Crash Risk .........................................................70
Table 5-6 GPS Floating Car: Minor Damage Crash Risk .........................................70
Table 5-7 GPS Floating Car: Moderate Damage Crash Risk....................................70
Table 5-8 GPS Floating Car: Major Damage Crash Risk .........................................71
Table 5-9 GPS Floating Car: Speeds for before and after conditions .......................71
Table 6-1 Results for crash risk changes after signal coordination...........................78