• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-46
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• 2015

PURPOSES: The operational characteristics of roundabouts are generally influenced by location as well as traffic volume. The goal of this study is to develop urban and rural roundabout accident models and to discuss safety improvement guidelines based on the model. METHODS : To analyze accidents, count data models are utilized in this study. This study used accident data from 2010 to 2013 for 56 roundabouts collected from the Traffic Accident Analysis System (TASS) of Road Traffic Authority. Poisson and negative binomial regression models were developed for this study using NLOGIT 4.0. RESULTS : The main results are as follows. First, the hypotheses that there are distributional differences in the number of accidents and injuries/fatalities among rural and urban roundabouts were accepted. Second, Poisson and negative binomial regression accident models, which were all statistically significant, were developed. Seven independent variables, which were statistically significant, were adopted. Third, the common variable of models was evaluated to be traffic volume. CONCLUSIONS : This study developed two negative binomial roundabout accident models and suggested some accident reduction strategies. The results are expected to give some implications to the safety improvement of roundabout.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.53-59
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• 2021

According to the Korean Traffic Accident Analysis System (TAAS), more than 200,000 traffic accidents occur every year. Also, the statistics including auto insurance companies data show 1.3 million traffic accidents. In the case of TAAS, the types of traffic accidents are simply divided into four; frontal collision, side collision, rear collision, and rollover. However, more detailed information is needed to assess for advanced driver assist systems at intersections. For example, directional information is needed, such as whether the vehicle in the car accident way in a straight or a left turn, etc. This study intends to redefine the type of accident with the more clear driving direction and path by referring to the Negligence standards used in automobile insurance accidents. The standards largely divide five categories of car-to-car/motorcycle /pedestrian/cyclist, and highway, and the each category is classified into dozens of types by status of the traffic signal, conflict situations. In order to present more various accident types for auto insurance accidents, the standards are reclassified driving direction and path of vehicles from crash situations. In results, the car-to-car accidents are classified into 33 accident types, car-to-pedestrian accidents have 19 accident types, car-to-motorcycle accidents have 38 accident types, and car-to-cyclist accidents are derived into 26 types.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.636-645
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• 2022

Purpose: This study intends to suggest alternatives for improving the level of safety culture by measuring/analyzing safety culture targeting employees of national core-based highway operating organizations. Method: Using the 'Safety Awareness Level Diagnosis Tool' of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, 16 sub-factor measurement tools reflecting 4 safety culture areas and 4 safety culture activities were evaluated for a total of 144 items. were surveyed/analyzed by online questionnaire. Result: As for the results by safety culture area, "safe operation" was the highest, and "safe communication" was the lowest. As for the results of each safety culture activity, "safe execution (D)", which evaluates whether the plan was implemented, was high. The lowest level of safety culture is "Safety Improvement (A)" Conclusion: When establishing a company's safety and health management measures, the most important aspect of management is the level of safety culture. The ultimate goal is to improve the level of safety culture. In this study, it was possible to confirm the safety culture level of the national core-based expressway operating institution. In the future, we intend to conduct a study on how safety culture affects business continuity management system (BCMS).

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.69-83
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• 2009

According to the accident statistics of 2006, it can be recognized that drivers' characteristics and driving behaviors are the most causational factors on the traffic accidents. At present, many recording tools such as digital speedometer or black box are distributed in the market to meet social requests of decreasing traffic accidents and increasing safe driving behaviors. However, it is also true that the system preventing any possible vehicle accidents in advance has not been developed. In this study, we developed critical value for deciding dangerous driving behaviors. The developed critical value could be used to contribute to safety driving management systematization and safety driving behaviors.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2017

The structural strain plays a significant role in structural condition assessment of in-service bridges in terms of structural bearing capacity, structural reliability level and entire safety redundancy. Therefore, it has been one of the most important parameters concerned by researchers and engineers engaged in structural health monitoring (SHM) practices. In this paper, an SHM system instrumented on the Jiubao Bridge located in Hangzhou, China is firstly introduced. This system involves nine subsystems and has been continuously operated for five years since 2012. As part of the SHM system, a total of 166 fiber Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensors are installed on the bridge to measure the dynamic strain responses of key structural components. Based on the strain monitoring data acquired in recent two years, the strain-based structural condition assessment of the Jiubao Bridge is carried out. The wavelet multi-resolution algorithm is applied to separate the temperature effect from the raw strain data. The obtained strain data under the normal traffic and wind condition and under the typhoon condition are examined for structural safety evaluation. The structural condition rating of the bridge in accordance with the AASHTO specification for condition evaluation and load and resistance factor rating of highway bridges is performed by use of the processed strain data in combination with finite element analysis. The analysis framework presented in this study can be used as a reference for facilitating the assessment, inspection and maintenance activities of in-service bridges instrumented with long-term SHM system.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.357-369
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• 2014

In the existing bridge management systems, assessment of the structural behavior is based on the results of visual inspections in which corresponding condition states are assigned to individual elements. In this process, limited attention is given to the correlation between bridge elements from structural perspective. Also, the uncertainty of parameters which affect the structural capacity is ignored. A system reliability-based assessment model is potentially an appropriate replacement for the existing procedures. The aim of this research is to evaluate the system reliability of existing conventional Steel-Reinforced bridge decks over time. The developed method utilizes the reliability theory and evaluates the structural safety for such bridges based on their failure mechanisms. System reliability analysis has been applied to simply-supported concrete bridge superstructures designed according to the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC-S6) and the deterioration pattern is achieved based on the reliability estimates. Finally, the bridge condition index of an old existing bridge in Montreal has been estimated using the developed deterioration pattern. The results obtained from the developed reliability-based deterioration model and from the evaluation done by bridge engineers have been found to be in accordance.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.163-169
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• 2013

PURPOSES: The urban traffic problems can be defined as general problems for smooth traffic flow including maintenance of mass transportation system according to suddenly increased population, traffic regulations for vehicles and pollution problem. As a method for solving traffic jams, one of the traffic problems of late, interest in Intelligent Traffic System(ITS) is increasing sharply, which is a system managing traffic demand by providing passers with information on traffic state of path and road conditions before they pass the road through ATIS, a field of ITS. METHODS: Variable message signs(VMS) is used on the roads as a method for providing information to promote smooth traffic flow and safety and prevent traffic accidents in advance by providing drivers with various information while driving. RESULTS: Recently, as ITS industry has been vitalized and technical factors of VMS have developed, various kinds of information is provided but the effect of VMS has not been maximized due to its limited type. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore, this study intends to provide methods for effective information transfer by analyzing driver's visual behavior characteristics for VMS and presenting a basis for maximizing VMS effect after considering read by expression type.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.12-17
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• 2016

NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) has offered consumers the vehicle safety information on their car since 1978. NHTSA believes that they contribute auto makers to develop safer vehicle for customers, which will result in even lower numbers of deaths and injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes. NHTSA has been studied why people are still dying in frontal test despite of the use of many restraints system and they understand that current test does not reflect real world crash data such as oblique and corner impact test. As a result, NHTSA announced that a new test method will be introduced to use of enhanced biofidelic dummy and new crash avoidance technology evaluation from 2019. New and refined injury criteria will be applied to Head / Neck / Chest / Lower Leg. BrIC(Brain Injury Criterion)value in NHTSA test results using THOR dummy from 2014 to 2015 was average 0.91 and 1.24 in driver and passenger dummies. IIHS 64kph SOF test is the most likely to new frontal oblique test in an aspect of offset impact which is being studied by NHTSA. In this paper, we focused on head injury, especially brain injury - BrIC and conducted IIHS 64kph SOF (Small Offset Front) test with Hybrid III dummy to evaluate the injury for BrIC. Based on the test results, these data can be predicted BrIC level and US NCAP rating with current vehicle.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.15-28
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• 2020

After the driver test was simplified in 2011, there were criticisms of its inadequate level of safety standards. A new and improved test was adopted in December 2016. This study investigated the impact of the changes to the test on safety, and analyzed traffic safety statistics and sensory evaluations to determine the effect of the improved driving license test. The analysis concluded that the current test has a proper discrimination and that fairness has increased considerably. The analysis also identified measures that, once adopted, will improve the conduct of driver tests. In the future, it will be necessary to conduct more in-depth studies and to review cases of advanced countries.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2008

Seoul metropolitan government has introduced Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems in some major urban corridors on July 1st, 2004, and has reported that it was successful on the ground that bus speed has been increased in the corridors with BRT system and that it has also resulted in the increase of bus patrons. However, there comes a negative claim that BRT has increased the number of fatalities in the same corridors. This study first aims at developing safety evaluation indicators of pedestrian crossings, then compares values of those indicators from pedestrian crossings with and without BRT systems. The safety evaluation indicators of pedestrian crossing are developed as: the number (or ratio) of conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles, the number (or ratio) of vehicles violating pedestrian signals, the number (or ratio) of pedestrians remaining crossings at red signals, and the number (ratio) of pedestrians walking beyond crossing areas. When we compare values of these indicators for both pedestrian crossings with and without BRT system, it has turned out that crossings with BRT systems has more number of conflicts than the crossings without BRT systems, but it cannot be said that the ratio of conflicts will be different between two crossing types. It means that the number of conflict will increase as the number of pedestrians and vehicles in the crossings. When we note that BRT system intrinsically attract more number of pedestrians who get-in or get-off bus stops, we cannot said that BRT system will be safer for pedestrians.