• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.5585-5593
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• 2014

This study tested the hypothesis that the significance of the heterogeneous dispersion parameter in safety performance function (SPF) used to estimate the expected crashes is affected by the endogenous heterogeneous prior distributions, and analyzed the impacts of the mis-specified dispersion parameter on the evaluation results for traffic safety countermeasures. In particular, this study simulated the Poisson means based on the heterogeneous dispersion parameters and estimated the SPFs using both the negative binomial (NB) model and the heterogeneous negative binomial (HNB) model for analyzing the impacts of the model mis-specification on the mean and dispersion functions in SPF. In addition, this study analyzed the characteristics of errors in the crash reduction factors (CRFs) obtained when the two models are used to estimate the posterior means and variances, which are essentially estimated through the estimated hyper-parameters in the heterogeneous prior distributions. The simulation study results showed that a mis-estimation on the heterogeneous dispersion parameters through the NB model does not affect the coefficient of the mean functions, but the variances of the prior distribution are seriously mis-estimated when the NB model is used to develop SPFs without considering the heterogeneity in dispersion. Consequently, when the NB model is used erroneously to estimate the prior distributions with heterogeneous dispersion parameters, the mis-estimated posterior mean can produce large errors in CRFs up to 120%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1102-1108
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• 2014

This study was to compare the protection abilities of an SPF through ground or underwater casting. A mat of 1/10 scale was made and then mortar was placed on the ground and submerged conditions. A limit velocity of each mat was estimated with this experiment. As a result of the test, the mat failed because of the decrease of bearing power in the center of the waterway. On the one hand, the edge of the mat, where the velocity is slow, secures stability. The result of the limit velocity analysis suggests that a velocity of ground placement with 6.51m/s and underwater casting with 9.80m/s is the minimum to ensure stability. When SPF mat with a thickness of 0.50m is replaced with a concrete block, it is calculated to need a maximum thickness of 2.21m.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.46-54
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• 2009

This study deals with the effects on the accident reduction according to the installation of RLC (red light cameras). The objective is to analyze the effects on the accident reduction using EB (Empirical Bayes) method. In pursuing the above, the study uses the 728 accident data occurred at the 28 intersections which RLC are installed. The main results are as follows. First, the effects of accident reduction were analyzed to be 20.74% by simple before-after study method. Second, the safety performance functions (SPF) were developed by the Poisson and negative binominal regression models, and since the over-dispersion parameter was close to zero, Poisson model was evaluated to be more appropriate than the negative binominal model. Also, the Poisson model was analyzed to be statistically significant because its ${\rho}^2$ value was 0.409. Finally, the results of analysis using an EB method showed that the accidents were reduced by range from 3.89 to 29.23%.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.93-102
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• 2012

The frequency and severity of traffic accidents related to signalized intersections in urban areas have been more serious than those in both arterial segments and crosswalks. Especially, traffic accidents involved with injuries and fatalities have caused by traffic signal violations within intersections. Therefore, many countries including Korea have installed the red light enforcement camera (RLE) to reduce traffic accidents associated with the traffic signal violation. Meanwhile, many methodologies have been studied in terms of safety impacts estimation of red light enforcement, which, however, cannot be easy to conduct. In this study, safety impacts was estimated for intersections of Chicago downtown area using SPF models and EB approach. As a result, for all crash types and target traffic accident types such as "angle", "rear end", "sideswipe in the same and other directions", "turn", and "head on", fatal crashes were reduced by 26% and 38%. However, RLE may increase property-demage-only-crashes by 3.23% and 1.16%, respectively.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.35-44
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• 2021

In recent times, several studies have been conducted focusing on crashes occurring on the main segment of the highway. However, there is a dearth of research dealing with traffic safety relating to other highway facilities, especially ramp areas. According to the Korea Expressway Corporation's Expressway Information Service, 6,717 crashes have occurred on ramps in the five years from 2015~2019, which accounts for about 15% of all highway accidents. In this study, the simple and full safety performance functions (SPFs) were evaluated and explored using different statistical distributions (i.e., Poisson Gamma (PG) and Poisson Inverse Gaussian (PIG)) and techniques (i.e., fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE)) to provide more accurate crash prediction models for highway ramp sections. Data on the geometric characteristics of traffic and roadways were collected from various systems and with extensive efforts using a street-view application. The results showed that the PIG models present more accurate crash predictions in general. The results also indicated that the RE models performed better than FE models for simple and full SPFs. The findings from this study offer transportation practitioners using the Korea Expressway Corporation's Expressway a dependable reference to enhance and understand traffic safety in ramp areas based on accurate crash prediction models and empirical evidence.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2015

Crashes that occur at tollgates have different characteristics compared to those of the mainline on expressways in terms of crash cause, crash type, and vehicle type. Due to this fact, the safety performance function (SPF) focused on the expressway tollgates, apart from the mainline, should be developed. The aim of this study is, therefore, to identify the influential factors and develope a SPF for crashes at tollgates. Firstly, we established independent variables affecting crashes at tollgates through literature review and descriptive statistical analysis. Based on these variables, two negative binomial regression models with different form of independent variables were developed and goodness-of-fits of each model were compared. According to the results, the number of crashes increases i) as AADT, Hi-pass rate, and heavy vehicle rate increase, ii) as average lane width decreases, iii) on the mainline tollgate type. The safety performance function developed in this study could be applied to select hot-spots for expressway tollgates.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.135-144
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• 2009

This study estimates the expected number of accidents in Kyungbuk Province to capitalize on experience gained from four years of accident history using the Empirical Bayes (EB) Method. The number of accidents of each site in Kyungbuk Province is recalculated using the Equivalent Property Damage Only (EPDO) method to reflect the severities of the accidents. A cluster analysis is performed to determine similar sites and a unique Safety Performance Function (SPF) is established for each site. The overdispersion parameter is built to correct the difference between the actual number of accidents and the underlying probability distribution. To adjust for varying traffic characteristics of each site, a relative weight is applied and eventually estimates the expected number of accidents. The results show that the highest accident sites are Kimcheon, Youngcheon, and Chilgok, but on the other hand the lowest is Gunwi.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.583-595
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• 2014

Currently, Korean transportation policies are aiming for increase of safety and environment-friendly and efficient operation, by avoiding construction and expansion of roads, and upgrading road alignments and facilities. This is revealed by that there have been 22 road expansion projects (30%) and 50 road improvement projects (70%) under the 3rd Five-Year Plan for National Highways ('11~'15), while there were 53 road expansion projects (71%) and 22 road improvement projects (29%) under the 2nd Five-Year Plan for National Highways. For more effective road improvement projects, there is a need of choosing projects after an objective and scientific safety assessment of each road, and assessing safety improvement depending on projects. This study is intended to develop a model for this road safety analysis and assessment. The major objective of this study is creating a road safety analysis and assessment model appropriate for Korean society, based on the HSM (Highway Safety Manual) of the U.S. In order to build up data for model development, the sections thought to have identical geometrical structure factors in 5 lines, Cheonbuk province, were divided as homogeneous sections, and representative values of geometric structures, facilities, traffic volume, climate conditions and land usage were collected from the 1,452 sections divided. In order to build up data for model development, the sections thought to have identical geometrical structure factors in 5 lines, Cheonbuk province, were divided as homogeneous sections, and representative values of geometric structures, facilities, traffic volume, climate conditions and land usage were collected from the 1,452 sections divided. The collected data was processed correlation analysis of each road element was implemented to see which factor had a big effect on traffic accidents. On the basis of these results, then, an accident model was established as a negative binomial regression model.Using the developed model, an Crash Modification Factor (CMF) which determines accident frequency changes depending on safety performance function (SPF) predicting the number of accident occurrence through traffic volume and road section expansion, road geometric structure and traffic properties, was extracted.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.203-213
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• 2021

A vehicle crash occurs due to various factors such as the geometry of the road section, traffic, and driver characteristics. A safety performance function has been used in many studies to estimate the relationship between vehicle crash and road factors statistically. And depends on the purpose of the analysis, various characteristic variables have been used. And various characteristic variables have been used in the studies depending on the purpose of analysis. The existing domestic studies generally reflect the average characteristics of the sections by quantifying the traffic volume in macro aggregate units such as the ADT, but this has a limitation that it cannot reflect the real-time changing traffic characteristics. Therefore, the need for research on effective aggregation units that can flexibly reflect the characteristics of the traffic environment arises. In this paper, we develop a safety performance function that can reflect the traffic characteristics in detail with an aggregate unit for one hour in addition to the daily model used in the previous studies. As part of the present study, we also perform a comparison and evaluation between models. The safety performance function for daily and hourly units is developed using a negative binomial regression model with the number of accidents as a dependent variable. In addition, the optimal negative binomial regression model for each of the hourly and daily models was selected, and their prediction performances were compared. The model and evaluation results presented in this paper can be used to determine the risk factors for accidents in the highway section considering the dynamic characteristics. In addition, the model and evaluation results can also be used as the basis for evaluating the availability and transferability of the hourly model.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.23-32
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• 2010

Because ROTA(road traffic authority) analyzes the effects of accident reduction based on the data of 1-year after installation of RLC(red light camera), study of accident reduction effects over year after the installation of RLC is very short. This study deals with the traffic accident reduction during 3 years after the installation of RLC. The objective is to analyze the effects of accident reduction by year using EB method. In pursuing the above, the study uses the 951 accident data occurred at the 20 intersections which RLC are installed. The main results analyzed are as follows. First, the safety performance function (SPF) has been developed by the Poisson regression models which are statistically significant. Second, the results of an Empirical Bayes(EB) analyses showed that the accidents were reduced by the range from 2.73 to 38.75% after 1 year, from 6.85 to 47.36% after 2 year, and from 6.04 to 39.31% after 3 year from the installation of RLC.